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 LEVIThe 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.
More Primo Levi Quotes
-
-
There is Auschwitz, and so there cannot be God.
PRIMO LEVI -
He could hardly read or write but his heart spoke the language of the good
PRIMO LEVI -
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 -
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 -
If a writer is convinced that he is honest, then it is very difficult for him to be a bad writer.
PRIMO LEVI -
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 -
The aims of life are the best defense against death.
PRIMO LEVI -
We must be listened to: above and beyond our personal experience.
PRIMO LEVI -
I too entered the Lager as a nonbeliever, and as a nonbeliever I was liberated and have lived to this day.
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 -
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 -
I am constantly amazed by man’s inhumanity to man.
PRIMO LEVI -
The living are more demanding; the dead can wait.
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.
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