Quotes By Elie Wiesel

A destruction, an annihilation that only man can provoke, only man can prevent.

I do not recall a Jewish home without a book on the table.

When I was young I lost everything.

Not to transmit an experience is to betray it.

There are victories of the soul and spirit. Sometimes, even if you lose, you win.

I remember, May 1944: I was 15-and-a-half, and I was thrown into a haunted universe where the story of the human adventure seemed to swing irrevocably between horror and malediction.

That is my major preoccupation, memory, the kingdom of memory. I want to protect and enrich that kingdom, glorify that kingdom and serve it.

Friendship marks a life even more deeply than love. Love risks degenerating into obsession, friendship is never anything but sharing.

Our obligation is to give meaning to life and in doing so to overcome the passive, indifferent life.

It all happened so fast. The ghetto. The deportation. The sealed cattle car. The fiery altar upon which the history of our people and the future of mankind were meant to be sacrificed.

Once you bring life into the world, you must protect it. We must protect it by changing the world.

Man, as long as he lives, is immortal. One minute before his death he shall be immortal. But one minute later, God wins.

I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.

I will say, with memoir, you must be honest. You must be truthful.

I'll tell you what: I believe mysticism is a very serious endeavor. One must be equipped for it.

Without memory, there is no culture. Without memory, there would be no civilization, no society, no future.

Because I remember, I despair. Because I remember, I have the duty to reject despair.

Some stories are true that never happened.

I was very, very religious. And of course I wrote about it in 'Night.' I questioned God's silence. So I questioned. I don't have an answer for that. Does it mean that I stopped having faith? No. I have faith, but I question it.

Words can sometimes, in moments of grace, attain the quality of deeds.

We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.

I marvel at the resilience of the Jewish people. Their best characteristic is their desire to remember. No other people has such an obsession with memory.

Human beings should be held accountable. Leave god alone. He has enough problems.

Mankind must remember that peace is not God's gift to his creatures; peace is our gift to each other.

Now, when I hear that Christians are getting together in order to defend the people of Israel, of course it brings joy to my heart. And it simply says, look, people have learned from history.

That I survived the Holocaust and went on to love beautiful girls, to talk, to write, to have toast and tea and live my life - that is what is abnormal.

Moses was the greatest legislator and the commander in chief of perhaps the first liberation army.

Because of indifference, one dies before one actually dies.

What does mysticism really mean? It means the way to attain knowledge. It's close to philosophy, except in philosophy you go horizontally while in mysticism you go vertically.

I have to be self-conscious of what I'm trying to do with my life.