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 LEVIMonsters exist, but they are too few in numbers to be truly dangerous.
More Primo Levi Quotes
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For he who loses all often easily loses himself.
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Human memory is a marvelous but fallacious instrument.
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Man is a centaur, a tangle of flesh and mind, divine inspiration and dust.
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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.
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Darwin was not afraid to look deeply into the void. His bold view can be seen as either noble and pessimistic or noble and admirable.
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To destroy a man is difficult, almost as difficult as to create one: it has not been easy, nor quick, but you Germans have succeeded. Here we are, docile under your gaze; from our side you have nothing more to fear; no acts of violence, no words of defiance, not even a look of judgment.
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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.
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Perfection belongs to narrated events, not to those we live.
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One is tempted to turn away with a grimace and close one’s mind: this is a temptation one must resist.
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There are few men who know how to go to their deaths with dignity, and often they are not those whom one would expect.
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I am not even alive enough to know how to kill myself
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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.
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This is the most immediate fruit of exile, of uprooting: the prevalence of the unreal over the real.
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Is anything sadder than a trainThat leaves when it’s supposed to,That has only one voice,Only one route?There’s nothing sadder.Except perhaps a cart horse,Shut between two shaftsAnd unable even to look sideways.
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He could hardly read or write but his heart spoke the language of the good
PRIMO LEVI






