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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.

Primo Levi

Dawn came on us like a betrayer; it seemed as though the new sun rose as an ally of our enemies to assist in our destruction.
PRIMO LEVI

All Assist Betrayer Came Dawn Destruction Enemy Like New Rose Seem Sun
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
In history and in life one sometimes seems to glimpse a ferocious law which states: to he that has, will be given; from he that has not, will be taken away.
PRIMO LEVI

Ferocious Given Glimpse History Life Sometimes State
Man is a centaur, a tangle of flesh and mind, divine inspiration and dust.
PRIMO LEVI

Centaur Divine Dust Flesh Inspirational Man Mind
I’m a libertine, but it’s not my specialty.
PRIMO LEVI

Libertine Specially
Perfection belongs to narrated events, not to those we live.
PRIMO LEVI

Belong Event Live Naratte Perfection
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
I am none of these; I’m a normal man with a good memory who fell into a maelstrom and got out of it more by luck than by virtue, and who from that time on has preserved a certain curiosity about maelstroms large and small, metaphorical and actual.
PRIMO LEVI

Actual Good Lucky Maelstorm Man Memory None Normal Preserve Curiosity Virtue
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
The living are more demanding; the dead can wait.
PRIMO LEVI

Can Dead Demand Live More Wait
We who survived the Camps are not true witnesses.
PRIMO LEVI

Camp Survive True Witness
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
We will not return No one must leave here and so carry to the world, together with the sign impressed on his skin, the evil tidings of what man’s presumption made of man in Auschwitz
PRIMO LEVI

Carry Impress Leave Must Return Sign Skin Together Will World
To give a name to a thing is as gratifying as giving a name to an island, but it is also dangerous: the danger consists in one’s becoming convinced that all is taken care of and that once named, the phenomenon has also been explained.
PRIMO LEVI

Become Consist Danger Dangerous Give Gratifying Nam Island Name One Think
He could hardly read or write but his heart spoke the language of the good
PRIMO LEVI

Good Hardly Heart Language Read Spoken
Did chemistry theorems exist? No: therefore you had to go further, not be satisfied with the quia, go back to the origins, to mathematics and physics.
PRIMO LEVI

Chemistry Exist Further Go Satisfy Theorem Therefore

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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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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