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At the origin of physics lay the strenuous clarity of the West-Archimedes and Euclid.

Primo Levi

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
An enemy who sees the error of his ways ceases to be an enemy.
PRIMO LEVI

Cease Enemy Error See Way
I’m a libertine, but it’s not my specialty.
PRIMO LEVI

Libertine Specially
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
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
More dangerous are…the functionaries ready to believe and act without asking questions.
PRIMO LEVI

Act Ask Believe Dangerous More Question Ready
We must be listened to: above and beyond our personal experience.
PRIMO LEVI

Above Beyond Experience Listen Must Personal
We have collectively witnessed a fundamental unexpected event, fundamental precisely because unexpected, not foreseen by anyone.
PRIMO LEVI

Anyone Collectively Event Foreseen Fundamental Precisely Unexpect Witness
I too entered the Lager as a nonbeliever, and as a nonbeliever I was liberated and have lived to this day.
PRIMO LEVI

Day Enter Larger Liberate Live Nonbelievever
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
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
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
We who survived the Camps are not true witnesses.
PRIMO LEVI

Camp Survive True Witness
In fact, the existence of the death squads had a meaning, a message: ‘We, the master race, are your destroyers, but you are no better than we are; if we so wish, and we do so wish, we can destroy not only your bodies, but also your souls, just as we have destroyed ours.
PRIMO LEVI

Better Body Death Destroy Existence Fact Master Message Our Soul Squad Wish
Imagine now a man who is deprived of everyone he loves, and at the same time of his house, his habits, his clothes, in short, of everything he possesses: he will be a hollow man, reduced to suffering and needs, forgetful of dignity and restraint, for he who loses all often loses himself.
PRIMO LEVI

Cloth Deprive Everyone Everything Habit Imagine Love Man Same Short Time House
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

At the origin of physics lay the strenuous clarity of the West-Archimedes and Euclid.

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At the origin of physics lay the strenuous clarity of the West-Archimedes and Euclid.

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