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Quotes by Elie Wiesel

A destruction, an annihilation that only man can provoke, only man can prevent.
– Elie Wiesel
Because I remember, I despair. Because I remember, I have the duty to reject despair.
– Elie Wiesel
Because of indifference, one dies before one actually dies.
– Elie Wiesel
Hope is like peace. It is not a gift from God. It is a gift only we can give one another.
– Elie Wiesel
I decided to devote my life to telling the story because I felt that having survived I owe something to the dead. and anyone who does not remember betrays them again.
– Elie Wiesel
I do not recall a Jewish home without a book on the table.
– Elie Wiesel
I have not lost faith in God. I have moments of anger and protest. Sometimes I've been closer to him for that reason.
– Elie Wiesel
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.
– Elie Wiesel
In Jewish history there are no coincidences.
– Elie Wiesel
Indifference, to me, is the epitome of evil.
– Elie Wiesel
Just as despair can come to one only from other human beings, hope, too, can be given to one only by other human beings.
– Elie Wiesel
Most people think that shadows follow, precede or surround beings or objects. The truth is that they also surround words, ideas, desires, deeds, impulses and memories.
– Elie Wiesel
No one is as capable of gratitude as one who has emerged from the kingdom of night.
– Elie Wiesel
Not to transmit an experience is to betray it.
– Elie Wiesel
Some stories are true that never happened.
– Elie Wiesel
The act of writing is for me often nothing more than the secret or concious desire to carve words on a tombstone: to the memory of a town forever vanished, to the memory of a childhood in exile, to the memory of all those I loved and who, before I could tell them I loved them, went away.
– Elie Wiesel
The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it's indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it's indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it's indifference.
– Elie Wiesel
There are victories of the soul and spirit. Sometimes, even if you lose, you win.
– Elie Wiesel
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.
– Elie Wiesel
There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest.
– Elie Wiesel
We have to go into the despair and go beyond it, by working and doing for somebody else, by using it for something else.
– Elie Wiesel
Ultimately, the only power to which man should aspire is that which he exercises over himself.
– Elie Wiesel
Without memory, there is no culture. Without memory, there would be no civilization, no society, no future.
– Elie Wiesel
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.
– Elie Wiesel
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.
– Elie Wiesel
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.
– Elie Wiesel
No one may speak for the dead, no one may interpret their mutilated dreams and visions.
– Elie Wiesel
No human race is superior no religious faith is inferior. All collective judgments are wrong. Only racists make them.
– Elie Wiesel
Man, as long as he lives, is immortal. One minute before his death he shall be immortal. But one minute later, God wins.
– Elie Wiesel
Look, if I were alone in the world, I would have the right to choose despair, solitude and self-fulfillment. But I am not alone.
– Elie Wiesel
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.
– Elie Wiesel
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.
– Elie Wiesel
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.
– Elie Wiesel
Human beings should be held accountable. Leave God alone. He has enough problems.
– Elie Wiesel
Friendship marks a life even more deeply than love. Love risks degenerating into obsession, friendship is never anything but sharing.
– Elie Wiesel
After all, God is God because he remembers.
– Elie Wiesel