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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

Perfection belongs to narrated events, not to those we live.
PRIMO LEVI

Belong Event Live Naratte Perfection
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
The work of bestial degradation, begun by the victorious Germans, had been carried to its conclusion by the Germans in defeat.
PRIMO LEVI

Bestial Carry Conclusion Country Defeat Degradation Victorious Work
Perhaps one cannot, what is more one must not, understand what happened, because to understand [the Holocaust] is almost to justify.
PRIMO LEVI

Almost Happened Holocaust Justify More Must One Perhaps Understand
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
We would not think them so beautiful if they did not fly, or if they flew straight and briskly like bees, or if they stung, or above all if they did not enact the perturbing mystery of metamorphosis: the latter assumes in our eyes the value of a badly decoded message, a symbol, a sign.
PRIMO LEVI

Assume Badly Beautiful Brisky Decide Fly Message Mystery Perturbing Sign Straight Stung Think Value
Human memory is a marvelous but fallacious instrument.
PRIMO LEVI

Fallacious Human Instrument Marvelous Memory
The sea’s only gifts are harsh blows and, occasionally, the chance to feel strong.
PRIMO LEVI

Blow Change Feel Gift Harsh Occasionally Only Sea Strong
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 problem to be solved, the mystery to be clarified. It is never a matter of civil war; even though of different opinions, or of different political leanings, scientists dispute each other, they compete.
PRIMO LEVI

Classified Complete Different Each Matter Mystery never Opinion Other Problem Scientist Solve
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
Nothing can be said: nothing sure, nothing probable, nothing honest. Better to err through omission than through commission: better to refrain from steering the fate of others, since it is already so difficult to navigate one’s own.
PRIMO LEVI

Honest Nothing Probably Said Sue
The 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.
PRIMO LEVI

Abominable Alchemist Chemistry Hodgepodge Idea Ignorable Instead Interest Language Least Magician Organ Swindles Wuiivocal
He could hardly read or write but his heart spoke the language of the good
PRIMO LEVI

Good Hardly Heart Language Read Spoken
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
Those who deny Auschwitz would be ready to remake it.
PRIMO LEVI

Auschwitz Country Deny People Person Ready Remake

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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