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
action indifference danger
And action is the only remedy to indifference, the most insidious danger of all.
beneath blue bodies faces forget life night saw shall silent smoke turned whose
Never shall I forget that first night in camp, which has turned my life into one long night, ... Never shall I forget that smoke. Never shall I forget the little faces of the children, whose bodies I saw turned into wreaths of smoke beneath a silent blue sky.
along anyone anywhere bad build cannot failure fallen fault god good himself less light line resulted springs tried undo whose
In any case, he had bungled his life. Bad husband, bad father, bad lover: failure all along the line . . . All the springs were broken. No more light anywhere . . . Everything he had tried to build had fallen apart. The little good he had done had resulted in fiasco. Whose fault could it be other than his own? . . . And anyone will tell you that if God Himself cannot undo what happened, still less can man.
corpse depths eyes left
From the depths of the mirror, a corpse was contemplating me. The look in his eyes as he gazed at me has never left me.
catholics jews relations
Never have the relations between Jews and Catholics been as good.
letter special touched
The letter was a very special letter, and it touched me, ... I said, 'How can I say no?'
gift peace
Peace is not God's gift to his creatures. It is our gift to each other.
left stared
Night. The look in his eyes, as they stared into mine, has never left me.
society
In any society, fanatics who hate don't hate only me - they hate you, too. They hate everybody.
encourages helps neutrality
We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.
compare israelis people wonder
I have to wonder about people who compare Israelis to Nazis.
teacher
I had a teacher that always told me, 'Don't promise, because if you promise, you must keep it.' I promised, so here I am.
century community define desire duty enter expressed generation identity meaning members noble solidarity themselves
This is the duty of our generation as we enter the twenty-first century -- solidarity with the weak, the persecuted, the lonely, the sick, and those in despair. It is expressed by the desire to give a noble and humanizing meaning to a community in which all members will define themselves not by their own identity but by that of others.
takes time words
It's not perfect. Nothing is perfect. Sometimes it takes time for the words to become more than words.