Elie Wiesel Quotes

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

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. Because of indifference, one dies before one actually dies. To be in the window and watch people being sent to concentration camps or being attacked in the street and do nothing, that's being dead.

Indifference, to me, is the epitome of evil.

What hurts the victim most is not the cruelty of the oppressor but the silence of the bystander.

That place, Mr. President, is not your place. Your place is with the victims of the SS.

I rarely speak about God. To God yes. I protest against Him. I shout at Him. But open discourse about the qualities of God, about the problems that God imposes, theodicy, no. And yet He is there, in silence, in filigree.

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.

What I don't like today is, to put it coarsely, the phony Hasidism, the phony mysticism. Many students say, "Teach me mysticism." It's a joke.

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

Time does not heal all wounds; there are those that remain painfully open.

Some writings could sometimes, in moments of grace, attain the quality of deeds.