“In any society, fanatics who hate don’t hate only me – they hate you, too. They hate everybody.”
— Elie Wiesel
“Without memory, there is no culture. Without memory, there would be no civilization, no society, no future.”
— Elie Wiesel
“Look, if I were alone in the world, I would have the right to choose despair, solitude and self-fulfillment. But I am not alone.”
— Elie Wiesel
“I do not recall a Jewish home without a book on the table.”
— Elie Wiesel
“Once you bring life into the world, you must protect it. We must protect it by changing the world.”
— Elie Wiesel
“Peace is our gift to each other.”
— Elie Wiesel
“I don’t know much about politics, and I don’t want to know. That’s why I rarely involve myself in politics.”
— Elie Wiesel
“Some stories are true that never happened.”
— Elie Wiesel
“No human race is superior no religious faith is inferior. All collective judgments are wrong. Only racists make them.”
— Elie Wiesel
“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.”
— Elie Wiesel
“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.”
— Elie Wiesel
“After all, God is God because he remembers.”
— Elie Wiesel
“I was very, very religious. And of course I wrote about it in ‘Night.’ I questioned God’s silence. So I questioned. I don’t have an answer for that. Does it mean that I stopped having faith? No. I have faith, but I question it.”
— Elie Wiesel
“I have not lost faith in God. I have moments of anger and protest. Sometimes I’ve been closer to him for that reason.”
— Elie Wiesel
“Mankind must remember that peace is not God’s gift to his creatures peace is our gift to each other.”
— Elie Wiesel
“Human beings should be held accountable. Leave God alone. He has enough problems.”
— Elie Wiesel
“When a person doesn’t have gratitude, something is missing in his or her humanity.”
— Elie Wiesel
“In Jewish history there are no coincidences.”
— Elie Wiesel
“Now, when I hear that Christians are getting together in order to defend the people of Israel, of course it brings joy to my heart. And it simply says, look, people have learned from history.”
— Elie Wiesel
“It all happened so fast. The ghetto. The deportation. The sealed cattle car. The fiery altar upon which the history of our people and the future of mankind were meant to be sacrificed.”
— Elie Wiesel
“I marvel at the resilience of the Jewish people. Their best characteristic is their desire to remember. No other people has such an obsession with memory.”
— Elie Wiesel
“For me, every hour is grace. And I feel gratitude in my heart each time I can meet someone and look at his or her smile.”
— Elie Wiesel
“Religion is a very personal thing for me. Religion has its good moments and its poor moments.”
— Elie Wiesel
“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.”
— Elie Wiesel
“Religion is not man’s relationship to God, it is man’s relationship to man.”
— Elie Wiesel
“Historically, I come from Jewish history. I had the classic upbringing in the Yeshiva, learning, learning, and more learning.”
— Elie Wiesel
“I decided to devote my life to telling the story because I felt that having survived I owe something to the dead. and anyone who does not remember betrays them again.”
— Elie Wiesel
“Because of indifference, one dies before one actually dies.”
— Elie Wiesel
“Because I remember, I despair. Because I remember, I have the duty to reject despair.”
— Elie Wiesel
“I’m a teacher and a writer; my life is words. When I see the denigration of language, it hurts me, and it’s easy to denigrate a word by trivializing it.”
— Elie Wiesel