There is Auschwitz, and so there cannot be God.
PRIMO LEVIThe origins of chemistry were ignoble, or at least equivocal: the dens of the alchemists, their abominable hodgepodge of ideas and language, their confessed interest in gold, their Levantine swindles typical of charlatans and magicians; instead.
More Primo Levi Quotes
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For he who loses all often easily loses himself.
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It is this refrain that we hear repeated by everyone: you are not at home, this is not a sanatorium, the only exit is by way of the Chimney. (What did it mean? Soon we were all to learn what it meant.)
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If a writer is convinced that he is honest, then it is very difficult for him to be a bad writer.
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Is anything sadder than a trainThat leaves when it’s supposed to,That has only one voice,Only one route?There’s nothing sadder.Except perhaps a cart horse,Shut between two shaftsAnd unable even to look sideways.
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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.
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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.
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I am not even alive enough to know how to kill myself
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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.
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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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Perfection belongs to narrated events, not to those we live.
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The butterfly’s attractiveness derives not only from colors and symmetry: deeper motives contribute to it.
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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.
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An enemy who sees the error of his ways ceases to be an enemy.
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My number is 174517; we have been baptized, we will carry the tattoo on our left arm until we die.
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He could hardly read or write but his heart spoke the language of the good
PRIMO LEVI