Quotes By Elie Wiesel

In the concentration camps, we discovered this whole universe where everyone had his place. The killer came to kill, and the victims came to die.

Wherever men and women are persecuted because of their race, religion, or political views, that place must - at that moment - become the center of the universe.

There is a difference between a book of two hundred pages from the very beginning, and a book of two hundred pages which is the result of an original eight hundred pages. The six hundred are there. Only you don't see them.

The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference.

I have not lost faith in God. I have moments of anger and protest. Sometimes I've been closer to him for that reason.

I've given my life to the principle and the ideal of memory, and remembrance.

Indifference, to me, is the epitome of evil.

We have to go into the despair and go beyond it, by working and doing for somebody else, by using it for something else.

For in my tradition, as a Jew, I believe that whatever we receive we must share.

Hope is like peace. It is not a gift from God. It is a gift only we can give one another.

Sometimes I am asked if I know 'the response to Auschwitz; I answer that not only do I not know it, but that I don't even know if a tragedy of this magnitude has a response.

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

The Bible is not only laws, it's also stories.

Not to transmit an experience is to betray it.

When I was young I lost everything.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Some stories are true that never happened.

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

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.