Elie Wiesel, a Romanian-born Jewish writer, provided a poignant testament of the destruction of European Jewry during World War II through his works.
He survived Auschwitz and Buchenwald concentration camps, where he lost his mother, sister and father.
After the war, he settled in France, became a journalist and later moved to the United States, where he became a professor and naturalized citizen.
Urged by novelist François Mauriac, he wrote ‘Night’, a powerful memoir of his experiences in Auschwitz and several other works reflecting on the Holocaust and human nature.
A noted lecturer, he transformed his personal concern into a universal condemnation of violence, hatred and oppression, earning him the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1986.
He also served as the chairman of the President’s Commission on the Holocaust and the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council.
I have made a list of the best quotes by Elie Wiesel.
Best Elie Wiesel Quotes
Not to transmit an experience is to betray it. ~ Elie Wiesel.
Think higher, feel deeper. ~ Elie Wiesel.
All this under a magnificent blue sky. ~ Elie Wiesel.
Love makes everything complicated. ~ Elie Wiesel.
To forget a Holocaust is to kill twice. ~ Elie Wiesel.
God is God because he remembers. ~ Elie Wiesel.
It was neither German nor Jew who ruled the ghetto – it was illusion. ~ Elie Wiesel.
His last word had been my name. A summons. And I had not responded. ~ Elie Wiesel.
Music does not replace words, it gives tone to the words. ~ Elie Wiesel.
The opposite of life is not death, it’s indifference. ~ Elie Wiesel.
Human beings should be held accountable. Leave God alone. He has enough problems. ~ Elie Wiesel.
I pray to the God within me that
He will give me the strength to ask
Him the right questions. ~ Elie Wiesel.
I write to understand as much as to be understood. ~ Elie Wiesel.
The gates of the camp opened. It seemed as though an even darker night was waiting for us on the other side. ~ Elie Wiesel.
Peace is our gift to each other. ~ Elie Wiesel.
Our obligation is to give meaning to life and in doing so to overcome the passive, indifferent life. ~ Elie Wiesel.
Famous Elie Wiesel Quotes
What hurts the victim most is not the cruelty of the oppressor, but the silence of the bystander. ~ Elie Wiesel.
Whoever survives a test, whatever it may be, must tell the story. That is his duty. ~ Elie Wiesel.
Better that one heart be broken a thousand times in the retelling, he has decided, if it means that a thousand other hearts need not be broken at all. ~ Elie Wiesel.
I looked up at my father’s face, trying to glimpse a smile or something like it on his stricken face. But there was nothing. Not the shadow of an expression. Defeat. ~ Elie Wiesel.
I don’t want my past to become anyone else’s future. ~ Elie Wiesel.
I believe in God – in spite of God! I believe in Mankind – in spite of Mankind! I believe in the Future – in spite of the Past! ~ Elie Wiesel.
Look, whatever you do in life, remember, think higher and feel deeper. It cannot be bad if you do that. ~ Elie Wiesel.
In the face of suffering, one has no right to turn away, not to see. ~ Elie Wiesel.
I speak from experience that even in darkness, it is possible to create light and encourage compassion. There it is: I still believe in man in spite of man. ~ Elie Wiesel.
Friendship marks a life even more deeply than love. Love risks degenerating into obsession, friendship is never anything but sharing. ~ Elie Wiesel.
Because if we forget, we are guilty, we are accomplices. ~ Elie Wiesel.
Did I write it so as not to go mad or, on the contrary, to go mad in order to understand the nature of madness? ~ Elie Wiesel.
Humanity would never tolerate it. ~ Elie Wiesel.
Ultimate Elie Wiesel Quotes
Ultimately, the only power to which man should aspire is that which he exercises over himself. ~ Elie Wiesel.
I came to the conclusion that I am free to choose my own suffering. But I am not free to consent to someone else’s suffering. ~ Elie Wiesel.
After trampling over many bodies and corpses, we succeeded in getting inside. We let ourselves fall to the ground. ~ Elie Wiesel.
Even in darkness it is possible to create light. ~ Elie Wiesel.
I concurred with Job! I was not denying His existence, but I doubted His absolute justice. ~ Elie Wiesel.
One more stab to the heart, one more reason to hate. One less reason to live. ~ Elie Wiesel.
One person of integrity can make a difference. ~ Elie Wiesel.
Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. ~ Elie Wiesel.
Someone who hates one group will end up hating everyone – and, ultimately, hating himself or herself. ~ Elie Wiesel.
No human race is superior; no religious faith is inferior. All collective judgments are wrong. Only racists make them. ~ Elie Wiesel.
Popular Elie Wiesel Quotes
Most people think that shadows follow, precede or surround beings or objects. The truth is that they also surround words, ideas, desires, deeds, impulses and memories. ~ Elie Wiesel.
I did not deny God’s existence, but I doubted his absolute justice. ~ Elie Wiesel.
Life belongs to man, but the meaning of life is beyond him. ~ Elie Wiesel.
In this place, there is no such thing as father, brother, friend. Each of us lives and dies alone. ~ Elie Wiesel.
There are a thousand and one gates leading into the orchard of mystical truth. Every human being has his own gate. We must never make the mistake of wanting to enter the orchard by any gate but our own. To do this is dangerous for the one who enters and also for those who are already there. ~ Elie Wiesel.
When adults wage war, children perish. ~ Elie Wiesel.
To forget would be not only dangerous but offensive; to forget the dead would be akin to killing them a second time. ~ Elie Wiesel.
Elie Wiesel Quote: Only the guilty are guilty. Their children are not. ~ Elie Wiesel. 2 0
There is a difference between a book of two hundred pages from the very beginning, and a book of two hundred pages, which is the result of an original eight hundred pages. The six hundred pages are there. Only you don’t see them. ~ Elie Wiesel.
Because I remember, I despair. Because I remember, I have the duty to reject despair. ~ Elie Wiesel.
To remain silent and indifferent is the greatest sin of all. ~ Elie Wiesel.
Every single human being is a unique human being. And, therefore, it’s so criminal to do something to that human being, because he or she represents humanity. ~ Elie Wiesel.
Top Elie Wiesel Quotes
If the only prayer you say throughout your life is “Thank You,” then that will be enough. ~ Elie Wiesel.
Emphasis must be put on learning: there is no substitute to education. It can be briefly formulated in a few words: always, whatever you do in life, think higher and feel deeper. ~ Elie Wiesel.
We do not know the worth of one single drop of blood, one single tear. ~ Elie Wiesel.
Indifference is the sign of sickness, a sickness of the soul more contagious than any other. ~ Elie Wiesel.
Human suffering anywhere concerns men and women everywhere. ~ Elie Wiesel.
Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. ~ Elie Wiesel.
Life is really fascinated only by death. It vibrates only when it comes in contact with death. ~ Elie Wiesel.
No one may speak for the dead, no one may interpret their mutilated dreams and visions. ~ Elie Wiesel.
Only the guilty are guilty. Their children are not. ~ Elie Wiesel.
One day when I was able to get up, I decided to look at myself in the mirror on the opposite wall. I had not seen myself since the ghetto. 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. ~ Elie Wiesel.
Great Elie Wiesel Quotes
For us it meant true equality: nakedness. We trembled in the cold. ~ Elie Wiesel.
I was twelve. I believed profoundly. During the day I studied the Talmud, and at night I ran to the synagogue to weep over the destruction of the Temple. ~ Elie Wiesel.
Anything you want to say about God you better make sure you can say in front of a pit of burning babies. ~ Elie Wiesel.
Just as man cannot live without dreams, he cannot live without hope. If dreams reflect the past, hope summons the future. ~ Elie Wiesel.
Write only if you cannot live without writing. Write only what you alone can write. ~ Elie Wiesel.
Inspirational Elie Wiesel Quotes
I didn’t know that this was the moment in time and the place where I was leaving my mother and Tzipora forever. ~ Elie Wiesel.
There are victories of the soul and spirit. Sometimes, even if you lose, you win. ~ Elie Wiesel.
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. ~ Elie Wiesel.
How much longer would our lives be lived from one “last night” to the next? ~ Elie Wiesel.
In the beginning there was faith – which is childish; trust – which is vain; and illusion – which is dangerous. ~ Elie Wiesel.
Mankind needs peace more than ever, for our entire planet, threatened by nuclear war, is in danger of total destruction. A destruction only man can provoke, only man can prevent. ~ Elie Wiesel.
Had the situation not been so tragic, we might have laughed. ~ Elie Wiesel.
We must not see any person as an abstraction. Instead, we must see in every person a universe with its own secrets, with its own treasures, with its own sources of anguish, and with some measure of triumph. ~ Elie Wiesel.
Which is worse? Killing with hate or killing without hate? ~ Elie Wiesel.
I shall always remember that smile. From what world did it come from? ~ Elie Wiesel.
Take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. ~ Elie Wiesel.
I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. ~ Elie Wiesel.
This was it; the end of the road. A silent death, suffocation. No way to scream, to call for help. ~ Elie Wiesel.
For in the end, it is all about memory, its sources and its magnitude, and, of course, its consequences. ~ Elie Wiesel.
Our backyard looked like a marketplace. Valuable objects, precious rugs, silver candlesticks, Bibles and other ritual objects were strewn over the dusty grounds- pitiful relics that seemed never to have had a home. All this under a magnificent blue sky. ~ Elie Wiesel.
There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest. ~ Elie Wiesel.
All the dictionary had to offer seemed meager, pale, lifeless. ~ Elie Wiesel.
No human being is illegal. ~ Elie Wiesel.
Wise Elie Wiesel Quotes
And action is the only remedy to indifference, the most insidious danger of all. ~ Elie Wiesel.
Just as despair can come to one only from other human beings, hope, too, can be given to one only by other human beings. ~ Elie Wiesel.
I knew that I was no longer arguing with him but with Death itself, with Death that he had already chosen. ~ Elie Wiesel.
Man asks and God replies. But we don’t understand His replies. We cannot understand them. Because they dwell in the depths of our souls and remain there until we die. ~ Elie Wiesel.
Because of indifference, one dies before one actually dies. ~ Elie Wiesel.
The silence of two people is deeper than the silence of one. ~ Elie Wiesel.
I have not lost faith in God. I have moments of anger and protest. Sometimes I’ve been closer to him for that reason. ~ Elie Wiesel.
I feel that books, just like people, have a destiny. Some invite sorrow, others joy, some both. ~ Elie Wiesel.
I have learned two lessons in my life: first, there are no sufficient literary, psychological, or historical answers to human tragedy, only moral ones. Second, just as despair can come to one another only from other human beings, hope, too, can be given to one only by other human beings. ~ Elie Wiesel.
Some stories are true that never happened. ~ Elie Wiesel.
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. ~ Elie Wiesel.
Bread, soup – these were my whole life. I was a body. Perhaps less than that even: a starved stomach. The stomach alone was aware of the passage of time. ~ Elie Wiesel.
We do not know the worth of one single drop of blood, one single tear. All is grace. If the Almighty is the Almighty, the last word for each of us belongs to him. ~ Elie Wiesel.
How was it possible that men, women, and children were being burned and that the world kept silent? ~ Elie Wiesel.
So these were the 98 top Elie Wiesel quotes and sayings on God, death, holocaust, gratitude, hope and friendship.
If you like these quotes and sayings, then you can also read my other posts on Langston Hughes quotes and Mia Hamm quotes.
