Elie Wiesel Quotes: 17

• The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it's indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it's indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it's indifference.

• 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.

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

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

• There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest.

• That I survived the Holocaust and went on to love beautiful girls, to talk, to write, to have toast and tea and live my life - that is what is abnormal.

• If the only prayer you say throughout your life is "Thank You,"then that will be enough.

• Write only if you cannot live without writing. Write only what you alone can write.

• 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.

• For the survivor who chooses to testify, it is clear: his duty is to bear witness for the dead and for the living. He has no right to deprive future generations of a past that belongs to our collective memory. To forget would be not only dangerous but offensive; to forget the dead would be akin to killing them a second time.

  Night

• I write to understand as much as to be understood.

• In the beginning there was faith - which is childish; trust - which is vain; and illusion - which is dangerous.

  Night

• The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference.

• I still believe in man in spite of man. I believe in language even though it has been wounded, deformed, and perverted by the enemies of mankind. And I continue to cling to words because it is up to us to transform them into instruments of comprehension rather than contempt. It is up to us to choose whether we wish to use them to curse or to heal, to wound or to console.

  Open Heart

• Even in darkness it is possible to create light and encourage compassion. That it is possible to feel free inside a prison. That even in exile, friendship exists and can become an anchor. That one instant before dying, man is still immortal.

  Open Heart

• A disciple came to the celebrated Master of the Good Name with a question. “Rabbi, how are we to distinguish between a true master and a fake?” And the master of the good name said, “When you meet a person who poses as a master, ask him a question: whether he knows how to purify your thoughts. If he says that he knows, then he is a fake.