Quotessence
Home / Authors / Primo Levi
Primo Levi

Primo Levi Quotes

Chemist

Filter quotes by topic

AllPrimo LeviMenAuschwitzChemistryIfsScienceHumansOlocaustoHolocaustWaré Isto Um HomemHolocaustoNazismoCertainCountryDignityEndsHappenedHuman NatureKnows

Famous Primo Levi Quotes

“He was a bricklayer; for fifty years, in Italy, America, France, then again in Italy, and finally in Germany, he had laid bricks, and every brick had been cemented with curses. He cursed continuously, but not mechanically; he cursed with method and care, acrimoniously, pausing to find the right word, frequently correcting himself and losing his temper when unable to find the word he wanted; then he cursed the curse that would not come.”

AuschwitzPrimo LeviReawakeningBricklayer
Book:If This Is a Man / The Truce
Create image

“They are the typical product of the structure of the German Lager: if one offers a position of privilege to a few individuals in a state of slavery, exacting in exchange the betrayal of a natural solidarity with their comrades, there will certainly be someone who will accept. He will be withdrawn from the common law and will become untouchable; the more power that he is given, the more he will be consequently hateful and hated. When he is given the command of a group of unfortunates, with the right of life or death over them, he will be cruel and tyrannical, because he will understand that if he is not sufficiently so, someone else, judged more suitable, will take over his post. Moreover, his capacity for hatred, unfulfilled in the direction of the oppressors, will double back, beyond all reason, on the oppressed; and he will only be satisfied when he has unloaded onto his underlings the injury received from above.”

PoliticsPowerCorruptionWwiiAuschwitzPrimo LeviThe HolocaustThe TruceIf This Is A Man
Book:If This Is a Man / The Truce
Create image

“The trade of chemist (fortified, in my case, by the experience of Auschwitz), teaches you to overcome, indeed to ignore, certain revulsions that are neither necessary or congenital: matter is matter, neither noble nor vile, infinitely transformable, and its proximate origin is of no importance whatsoever. Nitrogen is nitrogen, it passes miraculously from the air into plants, from these into animals, and from animals into us; when its function in our body is exhausted, we eliminate it, but it still remains nitrogen, aseptic, innocent.”

StillsMatterBodyCertainAnimalTeachCasesAirOvercomingFunctionImportanceRemainsTradePlantNobleInnocentExhaustedChemistAuschwitzRevulsionNitrogen
Book:The periodic table
Create image

“Sooner or later in life everyone discovers that perfect happiness is unrealizable, but there are few who pause to consider the antithesis: that perfect unhappiness is equally unattainable. 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.”

HumansStatesJoyPerfectConditionsInfiniteObstaclesExtremesRealizationUnhappinessHuman ConditionSooner Or LaterPausesPreventingUnattainableAntithesisAuschwitzLater In LifePerfect Happiness
Book:Survival In Auschwitz
Create image

“We must be listened to: above and beyond our personal experience, we have collectively witnessed a fundamental unexpected event, fundamental precisely because unexpected, not foreseen by anyone. It happened, therefore it can happen again: this is the core of what we have to say. It can happen, and it can happen everywhere.”

HappensHappenedEventsFundamentalsCoreUnexpectedPersonal ExperiencesAuschwitzAbove And BeyondForeseenUnexpected Events
Author:Primo Levi
Create image

“Auschwitz is outside of us, but it is all around us, in the air. The plague has died away, but the infection still lingers and it would be foolish to deny it. Rejection of human solidarity, obtuse and cynical indifference to the suffering of others, abdication of the intellect and of moral sense to the principle of authority, and above all, at the root of everything, a sweeping tide of cowardice, a colossal cowardice which masks itself as warring virtue, love of country and faith in an idea.”

HumansStillsIdeasCountryWould BeSufferingMoralPrinciplesVirtueAirAuthorityRootsDiedDenyIntellectFoolishIndifferenceRejectionMaskCynicalCowardiceTidesSolidarityPlagueSweepingInfectionColossalAuschwitzSuffering Of OthersAbdication
Author:Primo Levi
Create image