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One is tempted to turn away with a grimace and close one’s mind: this is a temptation one must resist.

Primo Levi

To accuse another of having weak kidneys, lungs, or heart, is not a crime; on the contrary, saying he has a weak brain is a crime.
PRIMO LEVI

Accuse Brain Contrary Crime Have Heart Kidney Ling Nothing Says Weak Wek
I live in my house as I live inside my skin: I know more beautiful, more ample, more sturdy and more picturesque skins: but it would seem to me unnatural to exchange them for mine.
PRIMO LEVI

Beautiful House Inside Live More Picturesque Simple Skin Sturdy
For people of science, he is a hero. Denying man a privileged place in creation, .. he reaffirms with his own intellectual courage the dignity of man.
PRIMO LEVI

Creation Deny Dignity Hero Intellectual Man People Place Proiledge Science Source
Rejection of human solidarity, obtuse and cynical indifference to the suffering of others, abdication of the intellect and of moral sense to the principle of authority, and above all, at the root of everything, a sweeping tide of cowardice, a colossal cowardice which masks itself as warring virtue, love of country and faith in an idea.
PRIMO LEVI

Abdication Authority Colossal Cowardice Everything Human Itself Mask Obtuse Outside Rejection Root Solidarity Suffer Sweep
I have many times been praised for my lack of animosity towards the Germans. It’s not a philosophical virtue. It’s a habit of having my second reactions before the first.
PRIMO LEVI

Animosity Country Lack Many Praise Time Towards
At the origin of physics lay the strenuous clarity of the West-Archimedes and Euclid.
PRIMO LEVI

Clarity Country Origin People Person Physics Strenuous West
Each of us bears the imprint of a friend met along the way; In each the trace of each.
PRIMO LEVI

Along Bear Each Friend Imprint Met Trace Way
Human memory is a marvelous but fallacious instrument.
PRIMO LEVI

Fallacious Human Instrument Marvelous Memory
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
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
We are those who, through prevarication, skill or luck, never touched bottom. Those who have, and who have seen the face of the Gorgon, did not return, or returned wordless.
PRIMO LEVI

Bottom Luck never Prevarication Return Seen Skill Touch Wordless
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
For me chemistry represented an indefinite cloud of future potentialities which enveloped my life to come in black volutes torn by fiery flashes, like those which had hidden Mount Sinai. Like Moses, from that cloud I expected my law.
PRIMO LEVI

Back Chemistry Come Envelop Future Indefinite Life Potential Represent Torn Volute
The living are more demanding; the dead can wait.
PRIMO LEVI

Can Dead Demand Live More Wait
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
If a writer is convinced that he is honest, then it is very difficult for him to be a bad writer.
PRIMO LEVI

Bad Convince Difficult Honest Writer

One is tempted to turn away with a grimace and close one’s mind: this is a temptation one must resist.

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One is tempted to turn away with a grimace and close one’s mind: this is a temptation one must resist.

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Popular Authors

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