black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

The butterfly’s attractiveness derives not only from colors and symmetry: deeper motives contribute to it.

Primo Levi

I am constantly amazed by man’s inhumanity to man.
PRIMO LEVI

Amaze Constantly Inhumanity Man
Conquering matter is to understand it, and understanding matter is necessary to understanding the universe and ourselves: and that therefore Mendeleev’s Periodic Table, which just during those weeks we were learning to unravel, was poetry.
PRIMO LEVI

Conquer Matter Necessary Ourselves Poetry Understand Universe
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
I’m a libertine, but it’s not my specialty.
PRIMO LEVI

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

Cease Enemy Error See Way
After the planet becomes theirs, many millions of years will have to pass before a beetle particularly loved by God, at the end of its calculations will find written on a sheet of paper in letters of fire that energy is equal to the mass multiplied by the square of the velocity of light.
PRIMO LEVI

After Become Before Bettie God Love Many Million Particular Pass Planet Year
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.
PRIMO LEVI

Become Civilised Consider Country Efficiency Lawm Hinder Man More Weak Wek Wisdom
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.
PRIMO LEVI

Among Certain Confining Industry New Parasite Scale Themselves Thing Time Transquily
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.
PRIMO LEVI

Almost Country Create Destroy Difficult Easy Gaze Nothing Judgement Man Quick Succeed
This cell belongs to a brain, and it is my brain, the brain of me who is writing; and the cell in question, and within it the atom in question, is in charge of my writing, in a gigantic minuscule game which nobody has yet described.
PRIMO LEVI

Atom Belong Brain Cell Described Game Minuscule Nobody Question Writing
If a writer is convinced that he is honest, then it is very difficult for him to be a bad writer.
PRIMO LEVI

Bad Convince Difficult Honest Writer
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.
PRIMO LEVI

Around Bud Everything Granite Principle Spring Swell Understand Watch World
But they do not battle: they are bound together by a strong alliance, by the common faith “in the validity of Maxwell’s or Boltzmann’s equations,” and by the common acceptance of Darwinism and the molecular structure of DNA.
PRIMO LEVI

Acceptance Battle Common DNA Faith Molecular Strong Structure Together Validity
There is Auschwitz, and so there cannot be God.
PRIMO LEVI

Auschwitz Can Country God Not Person Place So
The living are more demanding; the dead can wait.
PRIMO LEVI

Can Dead Demand Live More Wait
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.)
PRIMO LEVI

Everyone Hear Home Refrain Repeated Sanatorium

The butterfly’s attractiveness derives not only from colors and symmetry: deeper motives contribute to it.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

The butterfly’s attractiveness derives not only from colors and symmetry: deeper motives contribute to it.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Primo Levi Quotes