Indifference, to me, is the epitome of evil.
— Elie WieselUS News & World Report (October 27, 1986)
Use itGS4/Essay: indifference to suffering is the worst evil.
Quotes / Thinkers / Elie Wiesel
Thinker · 19 quotes
Elie Wiesel quotes for UPSC
19 sourced quotes by Elie Wiesel on history & civilisation, peace, non-violence & conflict, courage, justice & rule of law, resilience & perseverance, with a use case for each in GS4, Essay and interviews.
✓ Attributions checked against Wikiquote's sourced list
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.
— Elie WieselInterview in O : The Oprah Magazine (November 2000)
Use itGS4/Life: gratitude is essential to our humanity.
What hurts the victim most is not the cruelty of the oppressor but the silence of the bystander.
— Elie WieselIn an interview with Carol Rittner and Sandra Meyers in Courage To Care - Rescuers of Jews during the Holocaust, NYU Press, 1986, p. 2. Also
Use itGS4: bystander apathy hurts victims more than oppression itself.
I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.
— Elie WieselNobel acceptance speech (1986)
Use itGS4: never stay silent amid suffering; neutrality helps the oppressor.
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 WieselNobel acceptance speech (1986)
Use itGS2 on human rights: wherever people are persecuted, that becomes the centre of concern.
There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest. The Talmud tells us that by saving a single human being, man can save the world.
— Elie WieselHope, Despair, and Memory (1986)
Use itGS4: even when powerless to stop injustice, never fail to protest.
No human race is superior; no religious faith is inferior. All collective judgments are wrong. Only racists make them.
— Elie Wiesel"Have You Learned The Most Important Lesson Of All?", published in Parade Magazine (May 24, 1992)
Use itGS1/Essay on racism and communalism: no race superior, no faith inferior.
If you ask me what I want to achieve, it's to create an awareness, which is already the beginning of teaching.
— Elie WieselIn a 1978 interview with John S. Friedman, published in The Paris Review 26 (Spring 1984); and in Elie Wiesel : Conversations (2002) edited
Use itEssay on awareness campaigns: creating awareness is the beginning of teaching.
A destruction only man can provoke, only man can prevent. Mankind must remember that peace is not God's gift to his creatures, it is our gift to each other.
— Elie WieselHope, Despair, and Memory (1986)
Use itEssay conclusion: peace is humanity's gift to each other, not God's.
None of us is in a position to eliminate war, but it is our obligation to denounce it and expose it in all its hideousness. War leaves no victors, only victims.
— Elie WieselHope, Despair, and Memory (1986)
Use itEssay on war: war leaves no victors, only victims.
Terrorism must be outlawed by all civilized nations — not explained or rationalized, but fought and eradicated. Nothing can, nothing will justify the murder of innocent people and helpless children.
— Elie WieselHope, Despair, and Memory (1986)
Use itGS3 on terrorism: never rationalise terror; nothing justifies murdering innocents.
If anything can, it is memory that will save humanity.
— Elie WieselHope, Despair, and Memory (1986)
Use itEssay on value of history: memory can save humanity.
It's up to you now, and we shall help you — that my past does not become your future.
— Elie WieselSpeech at the UN World Peace Day (21 September 2006) New York, Speech in UN Webcast (00:16:35)
Use itEssay conclusion: youth must ensure past atrocities don't become the future.
To forget would not only be dangerous but offensive. to forget the dead would be akin to killing them a second time.
— Elie WieselPreface
Use itEssay on remembrance: forgetting victims kills them a second time.
The duty of the survivor is to bear testimony to what happened . . . You have to warn people that these things can happen, that evil can be unleashed. Race hatred, violence, idolatries—they still flourish.
— Elie WieselAs quoted in "Will Hatred Ever End?", in The Watchtower (June 15, 1995)
Use itEssay on memory of atrocities: survivors' testimony warns that evil recurs.
There are victories of the soul and spirit. Sometimes, even if you lose, you win.
— Elie WieselAttributed in The Little Book of Romanian Wisdom (2011) edited by Diana Doroftei and Matthew Cross
Use itLife: moral victories matter; sometimes losing is winning.
Because I remember, I despair. Because I remember, I have the duty to reject despair. I remember the killers, I remember the victims, even as I struggle to invent a thousand and one reasons to hope.
— Elie WieselHope, Despair, and Memory (1986)
Use itEssay/Life: memory of evil creates the duty to reject despair and hope.
I had anger but never hate. Before the war, I was too busy studying to hate. After the war, I thought, What's the use? To hate would be to reduce myself.
— Elie WieselInterview in O : The Oprah Magazine (November 2000)
Use itGS4/Life: feel anger if you must, but never hate; hate diminishes you.
Just as man cannot live without dreams, he cannot live without hope. If dreams reflect the past, hope summons the future.
— Elie WieselHope, Despair, and Memory (1986)
Use itLife/Essay: humans need dreams and hope; hope summons the future.