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It is this refrain that we hear repeated by everyone: you are not at home, this is not a sanatorium, the only exit is by way of the Chimney. (What did it mean? Soon we were all to learn what it meant.)

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

Acquire Barbarism Few Judge Knowledge Perhaps Period Physical Pure Return Very
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
We must be listened to: above and beyond our personal experience.
PRIMO LEVI

Above Beyond Experience Listen Must Personal
The butterfly’s attractiveness derives not only from colors and symmetry: deeper motives contribute to it.
PRIMO LEVI

Attractiveness Butterfly Color Contribute Deeper Derive Motive Only Symmetry
I am constantly amazed by man’s inhumanity to man.
PRIMO LEVI

Amaze Constantly Inhumanity Man
Monsters exist, but they are too few in numbers to be truly dangerous.
PRIMO LEVI

Dangerous Exist Few Monster Number Too Truly
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 LEVI

Honest Nothing Probably Said Sue
Everybody is somebody’s Jew.
PRIMO LEVI

Everybody Jew Somebody
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
Perfection belongs to narrated events, not to those we live.
PRIMO LEVI

Belong Event Live Naratte Perfection
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
We have collectively witnessed a fundamental unexpected event, fundamental precisely because unexpected, not foreseen by anyone.
PRIMO LEVI

Anyone Collectively Event Foreseen Fundamental Precisely Unexpect Witness
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

Death Dignity Expect Few Know Men Often Whom
Perhaps Kafka laughed when he told stories [. . . ] because one isn’t always equal to oneself.
PRIMO LEVI

Always Country Equal Oneself People Perhaps Person Story Told
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
Never again could it be cleansed; it would prove that man, the human species – we, in short – had the potential to construct an enormity of pain, and that pain is the only force created from nothing, without cost and without effort. It is enough not to see, not to listen, not to act.
PRIMO LEVI

Again Clean Contract Cot Create Effort Enough Force Human never Nothing Pain Potential Prove Species

It is this refrain that we hear repeated by everyone: you are not at home, this is not a sanatorium, the only exit is by way of the Chimney. (What did it mean? Soon we were all to learn what it meant.)

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It is this refrain that we hear repeated by everyone: you are not at home, this is not a sanatorium, the only exit is by way of the Chimney. (What did it mean? Soon we were all to learn what it meant.)

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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