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

Elie Wiesel

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
For the dead and the living, we must bear witness. Not only are we responsible for the memories of the dead, we are responsible for what we do with those memories
ELIE WIESEL

Action Death Live Memories Responsibility
No human being is illegal. That is a contradiction in terms. Human beings can be beautiful or more beautiful, they can be fat or skinny, they can be right or wrong, but illegal? How can a human being be illegal?
ELIE WIESEL

Appearance Beautiful Contradiction Human Illegal Right Wrong
When a person doesn’t have gratitude, something is missing in his or her humanity.
ELIE WIESEL

Gratitude Herself Humanity Missing Person
Because I remember, I despair. Because I remember, I have the duty to reject despair.
ELIE WIESEL

Despair Myself Rejection Remember Responsibility
We believed in God, trusted in man, and lived with the illusion that every one of us has been entrusted with a sacred spark.
ELIE WIESEL

Believe God Illusion Man Spark
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
My faith is a wounded faith, but it’s not without faith. My life is not without faith.
ELIE WIESEL

Faith Life Myself Religious Wound
Bite your lips, little brother…Don’t cry. Keep your anger, your hate, for another day, for later. The day will come but not now…Wait. Clench your teeth and wait.
ELIE WIESEL

Angry Bite Cry Day Lips Wait
A Jew must be sensitive to the pain of all human beings. A Jew cannot remain indifferent to human suffering… The mission of the Jewish people has never been to make the world more Jewish, but to make it more human.
ELIE WIESEL

Human Mission Pain People Religion Suffering
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
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
To forget the dead would be akin to killing them a second time.
ELIE WIESEL

Death Forget Kill Time
The opposite of love is not hate, but indifference. Indifference creates evil. Hatred is evil itself. Indifference is what allows evil to be strong, what gives it power.
ELIE WIESEL

Allow Difference Hate Love Power
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
What hurts the victim most is not the cruelty of the oppressor, but the silence of the bystander.
ELIE WIESEL

Cruelty Discrimination Hurt Silence Stand Victim

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

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

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Popular Authors

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