Elie Wiesel Quotes

Humanity? Humanity is not concerned with us. Today anything is allowed. Anything is possible.

Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, that turned my life into one long night seven times sealed.
Never shall I forget that smoke.
Never shall I forget the small faces of the children whose bodies I saw transformed into smoke under a silent sky.
Never shall I forget those flames that consumed my faith forever.
Never shall I forget the nocturnal silence that deprived me for all eternity of the desire to live.
Never shall I forget those moments that murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to ashes.
Never shall I forget those things, even were I condemned to live as long as God Himself.
Never.

I pray to the God within me that He will give me the strength to ask Him the right questions.

PRIEST: Are you taking their side, daughter? You’ll burn in hell.
MARIA: Better in hell with them than in paradise with you.

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.

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

God made man because He loves stories.

Music does not replace words, it gives tone to the words

You, who are so-called illegal aliens, must know that no human being is "illegal." That is a contradiction in terms. Human beings can be beautiful or more beautiful, they can be fat or skinny, they can be right or wrong, but illegal? How can a human being be illegal?

I did not deny God's existence, but I doubted his absolute justice.

Miracles in mysticism don't occupy such an important place. It's metaphor, for the peasants, for the crowds, to impress people. 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. You plunge into it. Philosophy is a slow process of logic and logical discourse: A bringing B bringing C and so forth. In mysticism you can jump from A to Z. But the ultimate objective is the same. It's knowledge. It's truth.

We were outside. The icy wind whipped my face. I was constantly biting my lips so that they wouldn't freeze. All around me, what appeared to be a dance of death. My head was reeling. I was walking through a cemetery. Among the stiffened corpses, there were logs of wood. Not a sound of distress, not a plaintive cry, nothing but mass agony and silence. Nobody asked anyone for help. One died because one had to. No point in making trouble.

"For God's sake, where is God?"
And from within me, I heard a voice answer:
"Where He is? This is where hanging here from this gallows..."
That night, the soup tasted of corpses.

"Why do you pray?" he asked me, after a moment.

Why did I pray? A strange question. Why did I live? Why did I breathe?

"I don't know why," I said, even more disturbed and ill at ease. "I don't know why."

After that day I saw him often. He explained to me with great insistence that every question possessed a power that did not lie in the answer. "Man raises himself toward God by the questions he asks Him," he was fond of repeating. "That is the true dialogue. Man questions God and God answers. But we don't understand His answers. We can't understand them. Because they come from the depths of the soul, and they stay there until death. You will find the true answers, Eliezer, only within yourself!"

"And why do you pray, Moshe?" I asked him. "I pray to the God within me that He will give me the strength to ask Him the right questions."

We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silent encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.