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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

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
We who survived the Camps are not true witnesses.
PRIMO LEVI

Camp Survive True Witness
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
We are those who, through prevarication, skill or luck, never touched bottom. Those who have, and who have seen the face of the Gorgon, did not return, or returned wordless.
PRIMO LEVI

Bottom Luck never Prevarication Return Seen Skill Touch Wordless
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
If it is true that there is no greater sorrow than to remember a happy time in a state of misery, it is just as true that calling up a moment of anguish in a tranquil mood, seated quietly at one’s desk, is a source of profound satisfaction.
PRIMO LEVI

Greater Sorrow Happy Misery Profound Remember Satisfactory State Time True
To be considered stupid and to be told so is more painful than being called gluttonous, mendacious, violent, lascivious, lazy, cowardly: every weakness, every vice, has found its defenders, its rhetoric, its ennoblement and exaltation, but stupidity hasn’t.
PRIMO LEVI

Call Consider Coward Defender Ennoblement Exatiation Lascivious Lazy Mendacious More Painful Stupidity Told Vice Violent Weakness
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
The living are more demanding; the dead can wait.
PRIMO LEVI

Can Dead Demand Live More Wait
Perfection belongs to narrated events, not to those we live.
PRIMO LEVI

Belong Event Live Naratte Perfection
Monsters exist, but they are too few in numbers to be truly dangerous.
PRIMO LEVI

Dangerous Exist Few Monster Number Too Truly
My number is 174517; we have been baptized, we will carry the tattoo on our left arm until we die.
PRIMO LEVI

Baptized Carry Left My Number Tattoo Until Die
If you and your child were going to be killed tomorrow, would you not give him to eat today?
PRIMO LEVI

Child Eat Give Going Kill Today Tomorrow
Sooner or later in life everyone discovers that perfect happiness is unrealizable, but there are few who pause to consider the antithesis: that perfect unhappiness is equally unattainable.
PRIMO LEVI

Antithesis Consider Discover Everyone Few Happiness Later Life Pause Perfect Sooner Unreliable
I have many times been praised for my lack of animosity towards the Germans. It’s not a philosophical virtue. It’s a habit of having my second reactions before the first.
PRIMO LEVI

Animosity Country Lack Many Praise Time Towards
Everybody is somebody’s Jew.
PRIMO LEVI

Everybody Jew Somebody

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.

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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.

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