Elie Wiesel
Elie Wiesel
Eliezer "Elie" Wiesel KBEwas a Romanian-born American Jewish writer, professor, political activist, Nobel Laureate and Holocaust survivor. He was the author of 57 books, written mostly in French and English, including Night, a work based on his experiences as a prisoner in the Auschwitz and Buchenwald concentration camps...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionActivist
Date of Birth30 September 1928
CountryUnited States of America
writing musical needs
I listen to music when I write. I need the musical background. Classical music. I'm behind the times. I'm still with Baroque music, Gregorian chant, the requiems, and with the quartets of Beethoven and Brahms. That is what I need for the climate, for the surroundings, for the landscape: the music.
faith religious race
No human race is superior; no religious faith is inferior. All collective judgments are wrong. Only racists make them.
teaching college america
When I began teaching you hardly could find a university in America or a college where they would teach either Jewish studies or Holocaust studies.
freedom philosophy military
There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest.
pain adversity men
Remember also that it is not knowledge but the yearning for knowledge that makes for a complete, accomplished man. Such a man does not stand still but perseveres in the face of adversity, nor does he remain untouched by the pain cause by absence. On the contrary, he recognizes himself in each cry, uttered or repressed, in the smallest rift, in the most pressing need.
dream heart past
Just as man cannot live without dreams, he cannot live without hope. If dreams reflect the past, hope summons the future.
mean junk students
I don't see the junk youth. I only meet students, and even those who are not formally at the university, if they come to listen to me, they come to read me, it means they are not junk students.
memories people holocaust
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.
past want my-past
I don't want my past to become anyone else's future.
integrity differences making-a-difference
One person of integrity can make a difference.
years people messages
Often I say to myself "Really, what are we doing on this planet?" We are passing the message as well as we can, communicating our fears, our hopes ... Day in day out, week after week and year after year, people kill each other.
divorce arguing life-is
My faith is a wounded faith, but my life is not without faith. I didn't divorce God, but I'm quarrelling and arguing and questioning, it's a wounded faith.
beautiful quests beautiful-words
In the word question, there is a beautiful word - quest. I love that word.
holocaust forget
To forget a Holocaust is to kill twice