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A scientist’s life, the author says, is indeed conflictual, formed by battles, defeats, and victories: but the adversary is always and only the unknown.

Primo Levi

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
A man who would mutilate himself is well damned, isn’t he?
PRIMO LEVI

Dammed Himself Man Mutitate Well
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
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
Auschwitz is outside of us, but it is all around us, in the air. The plague has died away, but the infection still lingers and it would be foolish to deny it.
PRIMO LEVI

Air Around Auschwitz Away Country Died Foolish Infection Linger Outside People Person Plague Us
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
Monsters exist, but they are too few in numbers to be truly dangerous.
PRIMO LEVI

Dangerous Exist Few Monster Number Too Truly
We must be listened to: above and beyond our personal experience.
PRIMO LEVI

Above Beyond Experience Listen Must Personal
It is the duty of righteous men to make war on all undeserved privilege, but one must not forget that this is a war without end.
PRIMO LEVI

Duty End Foret Make Mist Privilege Righteous Underserved War
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
At the origin of physics lay the strenuous clarity of the West-Archimedes and Euclid.
PRIMO LEVI

Clarity Country Origin People Person Physics Strenuous West
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
The obstacles preventing the realization of both these extreme states are of the same nature: they derive from our human condition which is opposed to everything infinite.
PRIMO LEVI

Both Deprive Everything Extreme Infinite Nature Obstacle Prevent Realization Sam State
I beg the reader not to go in search of messages. It is a term that I detest because it distresses me greatly, for it forces on me clothes that are not mine, which in fact belong to a human type that I distrust; the prophet, the soothsayer, the seer.
PRIMO LEVI

Beg Cloth Detect Distress Force Greatly Message Reader Search Term
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
It is neither easy nor agreeable to dredge this abyss of viciousness, and yet I think it must be done, because what could be perpetrated yesterday could be attempted again tomorrow, could overwhelm us and our children.
PRIMO LEVI

Abyss Again Aggregate Believe Children Done Grudge Must Neither Overwhelm Say Think Tomorrow Viciousness

A scientist’s life, the author says, is indeed conflictual, formed by battles, defeats, and victories: but the adversary is always and only the unknown.

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A scientist’s life, the author says, is indeed conflictual, formed by battles, defeats, and victories: but the adversary is always and only the unknown.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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