Looking for the best and inspirational Elie Wiesel quotes?
Elie Wiesel was a well-known author, speaker, and political activist who has been one of the most influential voices in recent history. His work as a writer is the result of many years of struggle.
He was born in 1928 in Romania into what was then called Transylvania. His family was Jewish, and when they were forced to flee from the Nazis, they sought refuge in France. They were eventually forced to leave France and went to the United States, where they settled down with his father’s sister.
His family faced a hard beginning, but it eventually made them stronger people. Because of their perseverance, Elie found new meaning in life and wanted to speak up about all types of injustice that people faced around him – anti-Semitism or any other kind of injustice. He wrote about his experiences
Wiesel has been recognized as one of the most influential and prominent voices on the subject of human rights since his Nobel Prize win in 1986. His life work has been instrumental in teaching people about modern-day genocide, human rights violations, and the importance of freedom fighters worldwide.
Check out his most famous quotes that will change your mind and make you see good in everything!
69 Greatest Elie Wiesel Quotes
“One person of integrity can make a difference.”
“We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.”
“Every question possessed a power that was lost in the answer . ”
“Words can sometimes, in moments of grace, attain the quality of deeds.”
“Our lives no longer belong to us alone; they belong to all those who need us desperately.”
“We have to go into the despair and go beyond it, by working and doing for somebody else, by using it for something else.”
“Write only if you cannot live without writing. Write only what you alone can write.”
“A destruction, an annihilation that only man can provoke, only man can prevent.”
“Some stories are true that never happened.”
“Only one enemy is worse than despair: indifference. In every area of human creativity, indifference is the enemy; indifference of evil is worse than evil, because it is also sterile.”
“Just as despair can come to one only from other human beings, hope, too, can be given to one only by other human beings.”
“There is much to be done, there is much that can be done.”
“No human being is illegal.”
“And I feel gratitude in my heart each time I can meet someone and look at his or her smile.”
“Indifference, to me, is the epitome of evil.”
“We must not see any person as an abstraction. Instead, we must see in every person a universe with its own secrets, with its own treasures, with its own sources of anguish, and with some measure of triumph.”
“I pray to the God within me that He will give me the strength to ask Him the right questions.”
“When a person doesn’t have gratitude, something is missing in his or her humanity. A person can almost be defined by his or her attitude toward gratitude.”
“I have not lost faith in God. I have moments of anger and protest. Sometimes I’ve been closer to him for that reason.”
“To remain silent and indifferent is the greatest sin of all.”
“Someone who hates one group will end up hating everyone – and, ultimately, hating himself or herself.”
“Action is the only remedy to indifference, the most insidious danger of all.”
“If the only prayer you say throughout your life is “Thank You,” then that will be enough.”
“We are all brothers and we are all suffering the same fate. The same smoke floats over all our heads. Help one another. It is the only way to survive.”
“There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest.”
“For in my tradition, as a Jew, I believe that whatever we receive we must share.”
“No human race is superior; no religious faith is inferior. All collective judgments are wrong. Only racists make them.”
“Not to transmit an experience is to betray it.”
“Life is really fascinated only by death. It vibrates only when it comes in contact with death.”
“The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference.”
“From the depths of the mirror, a corpse was contemplating me. The look in his eyes as he gazed at me has never left me.”
“Think higher, feel deeper.”
“Just as man cannot live without dreams, he cannot live without hope. If dreams reflect the past, hope summons the future.”
“If I were immersed in constant melancholy, I would not be who I am.”
“Indifference is the sign of sickness, a sickness of the soul more contagious than any other.”
“To forget would be not only dangerous but offensive; to forget the dead would be akin to killing them a second time.”
“One more stab to the heart, one more reason to hate. One less reason to live.”
“If your suffering splashes others, those around you, those for whom you represent a reason to live, then you must kill it, choke it.”
“Look, whatever you do in life, remember, think higher and feel deeper. It cannot be bad if you do that.”
“Because of indifference, one dies before one actually dies.”
“Each man was his own executioner and his own victim.”
“Love is this and love is that; man is born to love; he is only alive when he is in the presence of a woman he loves or should love.”
“Peace is not God’s gift to his creatures. It is our gift to each other.”
“For the good of all, I say: Be careful, the brutality of the world must not be more powerful or attractive than love and friendship.”
“Once you bring life into the world, you must protect it. We must protect it by changing the world.”
“When you listen to a witness, you become a witness.”
“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.”
“For the dead and the living, we must bear witness.”
“Peace is our gift to each other.”
“We do not know the worth of one single drop of blood, one single tear.”
“There are victories of the soul and spirit. Sometimes, even if you lose, you win.”
“A man who is fighting for the future of mankind is not waiting for torture, he’s waiting for — the Revolution.”
“I write to understand as much as to be understood.”
“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.”
“Life belongs to man, but the meaning of life is beyond him.”
“A man hates his enemy because he hates his own hate.”
“There is nothing sacred, nothing uplifting, in hatred or in death.”
“I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides.”
“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.”
“For me, every hour is grace.”
“When language fails, violence becomes a language; I never had that feeling.”
“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.”
“Those who kept silent yesterday will remain silent tomorrow.”
“… hatred is never an answer, and … death nullifies all answers. There is nothing sacred, nothing uplifting, in hatred or in death.”
“Friendship marks a life even more deeply than love. Love risks degenerating into obsession, friendship is never anything but sharing.”
“Love is worth as much as prayer. Sometimes more.”
“Have faith in life, a thousand times faith. By driving out despair, you will move away from death.”
“Music does not replace words, it gives tone to the words.”
“Hope is like peace. It is not a gift from God. It is a gift only we can give one another.”
“Our obligation is to give meaning to life and in doing so to overcome the passive, indifferent life.”
