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All collective judgments are wrong. Only racists make them. No human race is superior; no religious faith is inferior.

Elie Wiesel

Take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim.
ELIE WIESEL

Help Oppression Side Victim
Our obligation is to give meaning to life and in doing so to overcome the passive, indifferent life.
ELIE WIESEL

Life Meaning Obligation Ourselves Passive
Every single human being is a unique human being. And, therefore, it’s so criminal to do something to that human being, because he or she represents humanity.
ELIE WIESEL

Crime Human Humanity Represent
Most people think that shadows follow, precede or surround beings or objects. The truth is that they also surround words, ideas, desires, deeds, impulses and memories.
ELIE WIESEL

Desire Ideas Memories People Shadow Surround Thinking Truth
But where was I to start? The world is so vast, I shall start with the country I knew best, my own. But my country is so very large. I had better start with my town. But my town, too, is large. I had best start with my street. No, my home. No, my family. Never mind, I shall start with myself.
ELIE WIESEL

Better Country Inspirational Myself Start World
Never shall I forget those moments that murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to ashes.
ELIE WIESEL

Ash Dreams Forget God Moments Murder
I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation.
ELIE WIESEL

Endurance Human Humiliation Myself Silence
We must not see any person as an abstraction. Instead, we must see in every person a universe with its own secrets, with its own treasures, with its own sources of anguish, and with some measure of triumph.
ELIE WIESEL

Different Measurement Person Philosophy Source Success Universe
Emphasis must be put on learning: there is no substitute to education. It can be briefly formulated in a few words: always, whatever you do in life, think higher and feel deeper.
ELIE WIESEL

Education Learning Substitute Word
Every moment is a new beginning.
ELIE WIESEL

Beginning Moments Perspective Time
Whoever survives a test, whatever it may be, must tell the story. That is his duty.
ELIE WIESEL

Himself Story Survive
Better that one heart be broken a thousand times in the retelling, he has decided, if it means that a thousand other hearts need not be broken at all.
ELIE WIESEL

Better Break Decision Heart Broken Oneself Time
I have not lost faith in God. I have moments of anger and protest. Sometimes I’ve been closer to him for that reason.
ELIE WIESEL

Angry Faith God Lost Moments Myself Reason
I was there when God was put on trial. At the end of the trial, they used the word chayav, rather than ‘guilty’. It means ‘He owes us something’. Then we went to pray.
ELIE WIESEL

Death End God Guilty Himself Prayer Trial
Gratitude is a word that I cherish. Gratitude is what defines the happiness and humanity of the human being.
ELIE WIESEL

Cherish Definition Gratitude Happiness Humanity Myself
We are all teachers, or should be. Anyone who relays experience to another person is a teacher. Not to transmit your experience is to betray it.
ELIE WIESEL

Betrayal Experience Person Teacher
For nearly 3,500 years Exodus has left such an imprint on people’s memories that I cannot imagine it had been invented just as a legend or a tale.
ELIE WIESEL

Imagination Invention Memories Myself People Time
We must choose between the violence of adults and the smiles of children. Between the ugliness of hate and the will to oppose it. Between inflicting suffering and humiliation on our fellow man and offering him the solidarity and hope he deserves.
ELIE WIESEL

Adult Choice Deserve Hope Ourselves Suffering Ugly Violence
Human beings all change. Not what they are but who they are. We have the power to change what we do with our life and turn it into our destiny.
ELIE WIESEL

Change Destiny Human Ourselves Power
Think higher, feel deeper.
ELIE WIESEL

Deep Feeling High One Liner Thinking
Only the guilty are guilty: the children of killers are not killers, but children.
ELIE WIESEL

Children Family Guilty Kill
You’re shaking … so am I. It’s because of Jerusalem, isn’t it? One doesn’t go to Jerusalem, one returns to it. That’s one of its mysteries.
ELIE WIESEL

God Mystery Oneself Religious Return Shaking
I marvel at the resilience of the Jewish people. Their best characteristic is their desire to remember. No other people has such an obsession with memory.
ELIE WIESEL

Memories Myself Obsession People Remember Resilience
In the face of suffering, one has no right to turn away, not to see.
ELIE WIESEL

Face Right See Suffering
Every Jew, somewhere in his being, should set apart a zone of hate – healthy virile hate – for what the German personifies and for what persists in the German.
ELIE WIESEL

Hate Health Persistence Religious
Be careful with words, they’re dangerous. Be wary of them. They begat either demons or angels. It’s up to you to give life to one or the other. Be careful, I tell you, nothing is as dangerous as giving free rein to words
ELIE WIESEL

Angel Care Dangerous Demon Myself Word
Ultimately, the only power to which man should aspire is that which he exercises over himself.
ELIE WIESEL

Exercise Himself Man Power Ultimate

All collective judgments are wrong. Only racists make them. No human race is superior; no religious faith is inferior.

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All collective judgments are wrong. Only racists make them. No human race is superior; no religious faith is inferior.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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