Man is a centaur, a tangle of flesh and mind, divine inspiration and dust.
PRIMO LEVIWe have collectively witnessed a fundamental unexpected event, fundamental precisely because unexpected, not foreseen by anyone.
More Primo Levi Quotes
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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.
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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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Today I think that if for no other reason than that an Auschwitz existed, no one in our age should speak of Providence.
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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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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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Perhaps one cannot, what is more one must not, understand what happened, because to understand [the Holocaust] is almost to justify.
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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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He could hardly read or write but his heart spoke the language of the good
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It is the duty of righteous men to make war on all undeserved privilege, but one must not forget that this is a war without end.
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I’m a libertine, but it’s not my specialty.
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It is neither easy nor agreeable to dredge this abyss of viciousness, and yet I think it must be done, because what could be perpetrated yesterday could be attempted again tomorrow, could overwhelm us and our children.
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The new kings of the world will live tranquilly for a long time, confining themselves to devouring each other and being parasites among each other on a cottage industry scale.
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I am not even alive enough to know how to kill myself
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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.
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The obstacles preventing the realization of both these extreme states are of the same nature: they derive from our human condition which is opposed to everything infinite.
PRIMO LEVI






