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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

The aims of life are the best defense against death.
PRIMO LEVI

Against Aim Best Death Defense Life
More dangerous are…the functionaries ready to believe and act without asking questions.
PRIMO LEVI

Act Ask Believe Dangerous More Question Ready
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
There is Auschwitz, and so there cannot be God.
PRIMO LEVI

Auschwitz Can Country God Not Person Place So
Conquering matter is to understand it, and understanding matter is necessary to understanding the universe and ourselves: and that therefore Mendeleev’s Periodic Table, which just during those weeks we were learning to unravel, was poetry.
PRIMO LEVI

Conquer Matter Necessary Ourselves Poetry Understand Universe
Dawn came on us like a betrayer; it seemed as though the new sun rose as an ally of our enemies to assist in our destruction.
PRIMO LEVI

All Assist Betrayer Came Dawn Destruction Enemy Like New Rose Seem Sun
The memories which lie within us are not carved in stone; not only do they tend to become erased as the years go by, but often they change, or even increase by incorporating extraneous features.
PRIMO LEVI

Carve Change Erased Incorporation Increase Moemeory Often Stone Tend Year
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
Sooner or later in life everyone discovers that perfect happiness is unrealizable, but there are few who pause to consider the antithesis: that perfect unhappiness is equally unattainable.
PRIMO LEVI

Antithesis Consider Discover Everyone Few Happiness Later Life Pause Perfect Sooner Unreliable
We have collectively witnessed a fundamental unexpected event, fundamental precisely because unexpected, not foreseen by anyone.
PRIMO LEVI

Anyone Collectively Event Foreseen Fundamental Precisely Unexpect Witness
For he who loses all often easily loses himself.
PRIMO LEVI

Aften Easily Himself Loses
If you and your child were going to be killed tomorrow, would you not give him to eat today?
PRIMO LEVI

Child Eat Give Going Kill Today Tomorrow
Those who deny Auschwitz would be ready to remake it.
PRIMO LEVI

Auschwitz Country Deny People Person Ready Remake
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
After the planet becomes theirs, many millions of years will have to pass before a beetle particularly loved by God, at the end of its calculations will find written on a sheet of paper in letters of fire that energy is equal to the mass multiplied by the square of the velocity of light.
PRIMO LEVI

After Become Before Bettie God Love Many Million Particular Pass Planet Year
Our ignorance allowed us to live, as you are in the mountains, and your rope is frayed and about to break, but you don’t know it and feel safe.
PRIMO LEVI

Allows Break Frayed Ignorance Know Mountain Our Rope Usm Live

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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