Elie Wiesel Quotes

I write to understand as much as to be understood.

Questions outlive the answers.

Next to him lay his violin, trampled, an eerily poignant little corpse.

And I, the for­mer mys­tic, was think­ing: Yes, man is stronger, greater than God. When Adam and Eve de­ceived You, You chased them from par­adise. When You were dis­pleased by Noah’s generation, You brought down the Flood. When Sodom lost Your fa­vour, You caused the heav­ens to rain down fire and damna­tion. But look at these men whom You have be­trayed, al­low­ing them to be tortured, slaugh­tered, gassed, and burned, what do they do? They pray be­fore You! They praise Your name!

The bell. It was already time to part, to go to bed. The bell regulated everything. It gave me orders and I executed them blindly. I hated that bell. Whenever I happened to dream of a better world, I imagined a universe without a bell.

"Yisgadal, veyiskadash, shmey raba...May His name be celebrated and sanctified..." whispered my father.
For the first time, I felt anger rising within me. Why should I sanctify His name? The Almighty, the eternal and terrible Master of the Universe, chose to be silent. What was there to thank Him for?

I told him that I did not believe that they could burn people in our age, that humanity would never tolerate it…

Bread, soup - these were my whole life. I was a body. Perhaps less than that even: a starved stomach. The stomach alone was aware of the passage of time.

Indifference is the sign of sickness, a sickness of the soul more contagious than any other.

Whenever an angel says "Be not afraid!" you'd better start worrying. A big assignment is on the way.

In Jewish history there are no coincidences.

War is like night, she said. It covers everything.

The silence of two people is deeper than the silence of one.

Once you label a people "illegal", that is exactly what the Nazis did to Jews. You do not label a people "illegal." They have committed an illegal act. They are immigrants who crossed illegally. They are immigrants who crossed without papers. They are immigrants who crossed without permission. They are living in this country without permission. But they are not an illegal people.

We believed in God, trusted in man, and lived with the illusion that every one of us has been entrusted with a sacred spark.