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 LEVIA 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.
More Primo Levi Quotes
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Even in this place one can survive, and therefore one must want to survive, to tell the story, to bear witness; and that to survive we must force ourselves to save at least the skeleton, the scaffolding, the form of civilization.
PRIMO LEVI -
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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We are slaves, deprived of every right, exposed to every insult, condemned to certain death, but we still possess one power, and we must defend it with all our strength for it is the last – the power to refuse our consent.
PRIMO LEVI -
Each of us bears the imprint of a friend met along the way; In each the trace of each.
PRIMO LEVI -
We have collectively witnessed a fundamental unexpected event, fundamental precisely because unexpected, not foreseen by anyone.
PRIMO LEVI -
The butterfly’s attractiveness derives not only from colors and symmetry: deeper motives contribute to it.
PRIMO LEVI -
Human memory is a marvelous but fallacious instrument.
PRIMO LEVI -
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 -
What a very few are acquiring in knowledge of the physical world will perhaps cause this period not to be judged as a pure return of barbarism.
PRIMO LEVI -
There are few men who know how to go to their deaths with dignity, and often they are not those whom one would expect.
PRIMO LEVI -
An enemy who sees the error of his ways ceases to be an enemy.
PRIMO LEVI -
For he who loses all often easily loses himself.
PRIMO LEVI -
Monsters exist, but they are too few in numbers to be truly dangerous.
PRIMO LEVI -
If you and your child were going to be killed tomorrow, would you not give him to eat today?
PRIMO LEVI -
Anyone who has obeyed nature by transmitting a piece of gossip experiences the explosive relief that accompanies the satisfying of a primary need.
PRIMO LEVI