Elie Wiesel

“Friendship marks a life even more deeply than love. Love risks degenerating into obsession, friendship is never anything but sharing.”

“Once you bring life into the world, you must protect it. We must protect it by changing the world.”

“After all, God is God because he remembers.”

“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.”

“I have not lost faith in God. I have moments of anger and protest. Sometimes I've been closer to him for that reason.”

“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.”

“If I were in the government, I would persuade the prime minister to see the beauty in the fact that people see Israel as a haven - from their sadness to their hope.”

“Just as despair can come to one only from other human beings, hope, too, can be given to one only by other human beings.”

“Human beings should be held accountable. Leave God alone. He has enough problems.”

“Hope is like peace. It is not a gift from God. It is a gift only we can give one another.”

“When a person doesn't have gratitude, something is missing in his or her humanity. A person can almost be defined by his or her attitude toward gratitude.”

“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.”

“Without memory, there is no culture. Without memory, there would be no civilization, no society, no future.”

“Because of indifference, one dies before one actually dies.”

“Some stories are true that never happened.”

“No human race is superior; no religious faith is inferior. All collective judgments are wrong. Only racists make them.”

“I do not recall a Jewish home without a book on the table.”

“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.”