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Elie Wiesel

Elie Wiesel Quotes

Professor

A renowned Jewish author and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Elie Wiesel is known for his profound literary achievements and for recording and spreading the history of the Holocaust as a survivor. His works deeply reveal the terror of the Nazi Holocaust and the universal nature of human suffering.

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Famous Elie Wiesel Quotes

“He wants to see whether we are capable of overcoming out base instincts, of killing the Satan within ourselves. We have no right to despair. And if he punishes us mercilessly, it is a sign that He loves us that much more.”

Ifs Want Despair Capable Overcoming Instinct Killing Satan

Book:Night

Source: Night

“If you ask me what I want to achieve, it's to create an awareness, which is already the beginning of teaching.”

Ifs Want Asks Teaching Achieve Awareness Ask Me

Book:Elie Wiesel: Conversations

Source: Elie Wiesel: Conversations

“If there is one person on the planet who still is suffering from loneliness and from pain or despair, and we don't know about it, or we don't want to know about it, then something is wrong with the world.”

Ifs Knows World Want Persons Stills Pain Suffering Loneliness Planets Despair

Author:Elie Wiesel

“I don't speak about my pain. My pain is something that doesn't need to be purged. I want to prevent people from suffering. I don't speak about my suffering. Suffering is something personal and discreet. Also, I know it will never leave me. I don't want it to leave me. It would be a betrayal.”

People Knows Want Needs Would Be Pain Suffering Speak Betrayal Leaving Me Discreet Never Leave Me

Author:Elie Wiesel

“Young people want to learn, they are thirsty for knowledge, they want to understand and remember. The main thing is to teach them where not to go. Oppression, not to go; dictatorship, not to go; racism and prejudice, absolutely not to go. This is a moral plan [for society].”

People Want Remember Young Moral Teach Plans Racism Prejudice Oppression Dictatorship Thirsty Racism And Prejudice

Author:Elie Wiesel

“A Jew who converted, who simulated, was, at least in some periods, safe. Hitler in the beginning did not want to kill all the Jews but he wanted us to have a Germany free of Jews. If America had allowed Jews to come in, the British had accepted Jews from Palestine, they were safe.”

Ifs Want Wanted America Periods Safe Jew British Accepted Germany Palestine

Author:Elie Wiesel

“[Adolf] Hitler needed, he didn't want to kill Jews, he wanted to expel German Jews, and therefore it's not entirely corroborating your theory.”

Want Wanted Theory Needed Jew

Author:Elie Wiesel

“Today there isn't a university where they don't have special courses [Jewish studies or Holocaust studies], hundreds and hundreds of universities, young people today want to know more than their elders did, much more, and therefore I am very optimistic about young people.”

People Knows Want Today Young Courses Study Special University Optimistic Holocaust Elders

Author:Elie Wiesel

“I want to go back to the child I used to be, and to read with the same naiveté [the Pentateuch]. I want to leave science aside and go back to the pure perception offered to me in the text that is waiting there for me year after year.”

Want Years Children Used Waiting Pure Perception Used To Be

Author:Elie Wiesel

“If we want to know history, I would think there would be every reason to.”

Ifs Thinking Knows Want Reason Would Be

Author:Elie Wiesel

“Everything is in it: the promise and the hope and the fear and the challenge and the defiance. The test is a double test: Just as God tested Abraham, Abraham tested God: "Let's see if you really want me to go ahead with it and kill my son." Then the angel says, "Do not raise your hand against the boy" [Genesis 22:12]. It was the Angel of God who says this, not God. God was embarrassed. [All laugh]”

Ifs Want Hands Challenges Boys Laughing Son Promise Angel Tests Raises My Son Want Me Embarrassed Tested Abraham Defiance Genesis

Author:Elie Wiesel

“What I do, I want to do with all my being.”

Author:Elie Wiesel

“I'm not a political person, and their ambitions are not mine. They want power. I don't want power.”

Want Persons Political Mines Ambition

Author:Elie Wiesel

“Except if it has some historical meaning for them to have Tibet under their control. I don't understand why [ Chinese] want it so much.”

Ifs Want Historical Chinese Tibet

Author:Elie Wiesel

“I believe a human being - if he or she wants to remain human, then he or she must do something with what we have seen, endured, witnessed.”

Ifs Want Believe Humans I Believe Human Beings

Author:Elie Wiesel

“Naturally, the human being wants to forget pain.”

Want Humans Pain Human Beings Forget

Author:Elie Wiesel

“All those - or most of those - who went through the experience during the Second World War - they want to remember more - more and more. It's never enough because we feel that we have to tell the story. And no one can tell the story fully.”

World Want Feels War Enough Stories Remember War Of The Worlds Second World War

Author:Elie Wiesel

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

Want Literature Memories Protect Majors Kingdoms Glorify Preoccupation

Author:Elie Wiesel

“I don't want my past to become anyone else's future.”

Want Past My Past

Author:Elie Wiesel

“My faceless neighbor spoke up: “Don’t be deluded. Hitler has made it clear that he will annihilate all Jews before the clock strikes twelve.” I exploded: “What do you care what he said? Would you want us to consider him a prophet? His cold eyes stared at me. At last he said, wearily: “I have more faith in Hitler than in anyone else. He alone has kept his promises, all his promises, to the Jewish people.”

People Want Made Said Eye Care Lasts Clear Cold Promise Jew Strikes Neighbor Made It Clock Prophet Spokes Twelve Deluded Faceless Do You Care Cold Eyes

Book:Night

Source: Night

“Anything you want to say about God you better make sure you can say in front of a pit of burning babies.”

Want Fronts Baby Burning Pits

Author:Elie Wiesel

“I don't think I should accept other people's suffering because I suffered. Just the opposite, because I suffered I don't want others to suffer.”

People Thinking Want Should Suffering Accepting Opposites

Author:Elie Wiesel

“Writers write because they cannot allow the characters that inhabit them to suffocate them. These characters want to get out, to breathe fresh air and partake of the wine of friendship; were they to remain locked in, they would forcibly break down the walls. It is they who force the writer to tell their stories.”

Want Writing Character Stories Force Break Air Wall Wine Breathe Locked Breaking Down Fresh Air

Author:Elie Wiesel

“..you do not leave a library; if you do what it wants you to do, you are taking it with you.”

Ifs Want Library

Author:Elie Wiesel

About the Author

Born: September 30, 1928
Died: July 2, 2016
Known for: Professor
Quotes: 584

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People Ifs Men Holocaust Humans Knows Thinking World Mean War Human Beings Persons Stories Book Want Memories Should Believe Children Suffering

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Books & Sources

NightRelated source material

From the Kingdom of Memory: ReminiscencesRelated source material

Elie Wiesel: ConversationsRelated source material

The ForgottenRelated source material

The Judges: A NovelRelated source material

Legends of Our TimeRelated source material

Night: with related readingsRelated source material

Night ; Dawn ; DayRelated source material

Open HeartRelated source material

All Rivers Run to the Sea: MemoirsRelated source material

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