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.
PRIMO LEVIThey sensed that what had happened around them and in their presence, and in them, was irrevocable.
More Primo Levi Quotes
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Perfection belongs to narrated events, not to those we live.
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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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A scientist’s life, the author says, is indeed conflictual, formed by battles, defeats, and victories: but the adversary is always and only the unknown.
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Fascism does not want them, forbids them, and that’s why you’re not a Fascist; it wants everybody to be the same, and you are not. But immaculate virtue does not exist either, or if it exists it is detestable.
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The future of humanity is uncertain, even in the most prosperous countries, and the quality of life deteriorates; and yet I believe that what is being discovered about the infinitely large and infinitely small is sufficient to absolve this end of the century and millennium.
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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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A man who would mutilate himself is well damned, isn’t he?
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An enemy who sees the error of his ways ceases to be an enemy.
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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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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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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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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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To destroy a man is difficult, almost as difficult as to create one: it has not been easy, nor quick, but you Germans have succeeded. Here we are, docile under your gaze; from our side you have nothing more to fear; no acts of violence, no words of defiance, not even a look of judgment.
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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.
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More dangerous are…the functionaries ready to believe and act without asking questions.
PRIMO LEVI