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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

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
I too entered the Lager as a nonbeliever, and as a nonbeliever I was liberated and have lived to this day.
PRIMO LEVI

Day Enter Larger Liberate Live Nonbelievever
I am constantly amazed by man’s inhumanity to man.
PRIMO LEVI

Amaze Constantly Inhumanity Man
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
Human memory is a marvelous but fallacious instrument.
PRIMO LEVI

Fallacious Human Instrument Marvelous Memory
It happened, therefore it can happen again: this is the core of what we have to say. It can happen, and it can happen everywhere.
PRIMO LEVI

Again Core Everywhere Happen Happier Say
Man is a centaur, a tangle of flesh and mind, divine inspiration and dust.
PRIMO LEVI

Centaur Divine Dust Flesh Inspirational Man Mind
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
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
They sensed that what had happened around them and in their presence, and in them, was irrevocable.
PRIMO LEVI

Around Happen Inevocable Presence Sense Them
The sea’s only gifts are harsh blows and, occasionally, the chance to feel strong.
PRIMO LEVI

Blow Change Feel Gift Harsh Occasionally Only Sea Strong
Each of us bears the imprint of a friend met along the way; In each the trace of each.
PRIMO LEVI

Along Bear Each Friend Imprint Met Trace Way
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
Today I think that if for no other reason than that an Auschwitz existed, no one in our age should speak of Providence.
PRIMO LEVI

Age Country Mother People Person Province Reason Speak Think Today
Fascism does not want them, forbids them, and that’s why you’re not a Fascist; it wants everybody to be the same, and you are not. But immaculate virtue does not exist either, or if it exists it is detestable.
PRIMO LEVI

Detestable Everybody Fascism Forbid Immature Same Virtue
The memories which lie within us are not carved in stone; not only do they tend to become erased as the years go by, but often they change, or even increase by incorporating extraneous features.
PRIMO LEVI

Carve Change Erased Incorporation Increase Moemeory Often Stone Tend Year

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.

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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.

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Popular Authors

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