"You take a text, you explore it, you enter it with all your heart and all your mind."
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Quote collection
Elie Wiesel quotes (page 13 of 27)
533 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"There are real people behind the [Bible] stories."
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"You're at the bottom of the mountain. May you climb up without suffering."
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"It was the beginning of the war. I was twelve years old, my parents were alive, and God still dwelt in our town."
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"Man prefers to blame himself for all possible sins and crimes rather than come to the conclusion that God is capable of the most flagrant injustice. I still blush every time I think of the way God makes fun of human beings, his favorite toys."
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"Nevertheless, we are led to believe that true words can communicate more than truth, they communicate what life is all about, that it's threatened, when it's threatened, when it's in danger, then it becomes a curse or a blessing."
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"I imagine, like all his predecessors, Barak Obama would like to achieve greatness in bringing peace in the Middle East. I hope it will not be at the expense of Israel."
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"Simply because, one hand, there are the haters, The hater has power. All we can do is oppose it, or one becomes an accomplice."
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"For the purpose of my life, I don't ask the question. First of all, I believe. I think the Five Books of Moses are inspired. Call it divine. I don't know. But I would certainly call it inspired."
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""Am I my brother's keeper?" There you have the whole Biblical understanding that you are your brother's keeper. You also have a whole other understanding in which you are not your brother's keeper. And I've heard some extremely bright people take this position."
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"[The Book of the Law]was lost for so many years. And then Josiah decided to celebrate Passover. The text says that "The Passover sacrifice had not been offered in that way ... during the days of the kings of Israel and the kings of Judah" [2 Kings 23:22]. What do you mean? Not in the days of David and Solomon? Never before? And what of the days of the prophets? What happened? That's what I'm anguishing over. If the Book of the Law could be forgotten for so many years, who knows what was done to it during those years? Maybe it was lost later, too."
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"If you read Exodus 15 carefully, it describes a storm at sea. This is the old Yahwistic source. In the retelling of the story in the later Priestly source, it is more miraculous: The water stands up on either side like a wall. There are walls of water standing up. As you move back in time, oddly enough, the story becomes more historical."
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"From the depths of the mirror, a corpse gazed back at me. The look in his eyes, as they stared into mine, has never left me."
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"From time immemorial, people have talked about peace without achieving it. Do we simply lack enough experience? Though we talk peace, we wage war. Sometimes we even wage war in the name of peace. . . . War may be too much a part of history to be eliminatedever."
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"Only the guilty are guilty: the children of killers are not killers, but children."
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"What is Scripture? The Hebrew word is torah. Torah means teaching, learning."
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"What would the future of man be if it were devoid of memory?"
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"When has religion ever been unifying? Religion has introduced many wars in this world, enough bloodshed and violence."
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"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."
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"The stars were only sparks of the fire which devoured us. Should that fire die out one day, there would be nothing left in the sky but dead stars, dead eyes."
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