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
teacher children teaching
My ambition really was, even as a child, to be a writer, a commentator, and a teacher, but a teacher of Talmud.
teacher children giving
I'd almost say hope isn't what it used to be. It's very difficult today to be a teacher. I speak to children. And tell them, look, no matter what, you must have hope. You must. When I invoke Camus, who said when there is no hope, you must invent hope. . .hope is something that is not what God gives us. It's like peace. It's a gift that one can give to one another. Only another person can push me to despair. And only another person can push me to hope. Its my choice.
teacher teaching should
We are all teachers, or should be. Anyone who relays experience to another person is a teacher. Not to transmit your experience is to betray it.
tasks turbulent-times jew
The primary task of a Jew in turbulent times is to be Jewish.
pain betrayal people
I don't speak about my pain. My pain is something that doesn't need to be purged. I want to prevent people from suffering. I don't speak about my suffering. Suffering is something personal and discreet. Also, I know it will never leave me. I don't want it to leave me. It would be a betrayal.
understood
My God was never happiness, but to understand and be understood.
secret immortality stills
We still are looking for someone who knows the secret of immortality. Only God is immortal; we are not.
hands accomplices can-do
Simply because, one hand, there are the haters, The hater has power. All we can do is oppose it, or one becomes an accomplice.
helping-others survival helping
Because I survived, I must do everything possible to help others.
past curiosity return
The criminal is not alone when he returns to the scene of the crime; he is joined there by his victim, and both are driven by the same curiosity: to relive that moment which stamped past and future for each.
wall civilization magic
What is being lost is the magic of the word. I am not an image person. Imagery belongs to another civilization: the caveman. Caveman couldn't express himself so he put images on walls.
men soul depth
Man asks and God replies but we don't understand his replies because they dwell in the depths of our souls and remain there until we die.
library want ifs
..you do not leave a library; if you do what it wants you to do, you are taking it with you.
life-is contact fascinated
Life is really fascinated only by death. It vibrates only when it comes in contact with death.