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There are few men who know how to go to their deaths with dignity, and often they are not those whom one would expect.

Primo Levi

To be considered stupid and to be told so is more painful than being called gluttonous, mendacious, violent, lascivious, lazy, cowardly: every weakness, every vice, has found its defenders, its rhetoric, its ennoblement and exaltation, but stupidity hasn’t.
PRIMO LEVI

Call Consider Coward Defender Ennoblement Exatiation Lascivious Lazy Mendacious More Painful Stupidity Told Vice Violent Weakness
Human memory is a marvelous but fallacious instrument.
PRIMO LEVI

Fallacious Human Instrument Marvelous Memory
We must be listened to: above and beyond our personal experience.
PRIMO LEVI

Above Beyond Experience Listen Must Personal
Even in this place one can survive, and therefore one must want to survive, to tell the story, to bear witness; and that to survive we must force ourselves to save at least the skeleton, the scaffolding, the form of civilization.
PRIMO LEVI

Bear Civilization Even One Ourselves Place Skeleton Story Survive Tell Therefore Want Witness
Anyone who has obeyed nature by transmitting a piece of gossip experiences the explosive relief that accompanies the satisfying of a primary need.
PRIMO LEVI

Accompany Anyone Experience Exposure Gossip Nature Obey relief Satisfy Transmitting
The butterfly’s attractiveness derives not only from colors and symmetry: deeper motives contribute to it.
PRIMO LEVI

Attractiveness Butterfly Color Contribute Deeper Derive Motive Only Symmetry
A country is considered the more civilised the more the wisdom and efficiency of its laws hinder a weak man from becoming too weak and a powerful one too powerful.
PRIMO LEVI

Become Civilised Consider Country Efficiency Lawm Hinder Man More Weak Wek Wisdom
We collected in a group in front of their door, and we experienced within ourselves a grief that was new for us, the ancient grief of the people that has no land, the grief without hope of the exodus which is renewed in every century.
PRIMO LEVI

Collect Door Experiment Front Grief Group Newmancient Ourselves
Auschwitz is outside of us, but it is all around us, in the air. The plague has died away, but the infection still lingers and it would be foolish to deny it.
PRIMO LEVI

Air Around Auschwitz Away Country Died Foolish Infection Linger Outside People Person Plague Us
The principle of order in me, around me, and in the world… I would watch the buds swell in spring, the mica glint in the granite, my own hands, and I would say to myself: “I will understand this, too, I will understand everything.
PRIMO LEVI

Around Bud Everything Granite Principle Spring Swell Understand Watch World
If it is true that there is no greater sorrow than to remember a happy time in a state of misery, it is just as true that calling up a moment of anguish in a tranquil mood, seated quietly at one’s desk, is a source of profound satisfaction.
PRIMO LEVI

Greater Sorrow Happy Misery Profound Remember Satisfactory State Time True
I am not even alive enough to know how to kill myself
PRIMO LEVI

Enough Kill Known Live Myself
I am constantly amazed by man’s inhumanity to man.
PRIMO LEVI

Amaze Constantly Inhumanity Man
Everyone dreamed past and future dreams, of slavery and redemption, of improbable paradises, of equally mythical and improbable enemies; cosmic enemies, perverse and subtle, who pervade everything like the air.
PRIMO LEVI

Air Dream Equality Everyone Everything Future Mythical Past Perverse Redemption Slavery Suitable
Fascism does not want them, forbids them, and that’s why you’re not a Fascist; it wants everybody to be the same, and you are not. But immaculate virtue does not exist either, or if it exists it is detestable.
PRIMO LEVI

Detestable Everybody Fascism Forbid Immature Same Virtue
More dangerous are…the functionaries ready to believe and act without asking questions.
PRIMO LEVI

Act Ask Believe Dangerous More Question Ready

There are few men who know how to go to their deaths with dignity, and often they are not those whom one would expect.

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There are few men who know how to go to their deaths with dignity, and often they are not those whom one would expect.

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