65 quotes
What I don't like today is, to put it coarsely, the phony Hasidism, the phony mysticism. Many students say, "Teach me mysticism." It's a joke.
As long as one dissident is in prison, our freedom will not be true. As long as one child is hungry, our lives will be filled with anguish and shame.
Nobel acceptance speech (1986)
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.
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.
Nobel acceptance speech (1986)
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.
BERISH: I distrust miracles. They exist only in books, and books say anything.
The Trial of God (1979)
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. Because of indifference, one dies before one actually dies. To be in the window and watch people being sent to concentration camps or being attacked in the street and do nothing, that's being dead.
MARIA: Hell? Is he talking about hell? Good. For a moment I was afraid he was making sense.
The Trial of God (1979)
I thus became a refugee. That feeling of being a refugee lasted and lasted for many, many years — in fact, until I came to this country.
The Refugee (1985)
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.
Hope, Despair, and Memory (1986)
I remember when I became a refugee.
The Refugee (1985)
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 eliminated—ever.
We were so naïve. We thought that we were protected by our papers.
The Refugee (1985)
MARIA: The people can say anything they please—
MENDEL: Right. Under one condition: that they do not say it.
The Trial of God (1979)
PRIEST: Are you taking their side, daughter? You’ll burn in hell.
MARIA: Better in hell with them than in paradise with you.
The Trial of God (1979)
Most people thought we would remain in the ghetto until the end of the war, until the arrival of the Red Army. Afterward everything would be as before. The ghetto was ruled by neither German nor Jew; it was ruled by delusion.
Night (1960)
The beloved objects that we had carried with us from place to place were now left behind in the wagon and, with them, finally, our illusions.
Night (1960)
Waking among the dead, one wondered if one was still alive. And yet real despair only seized us later. Afterwards. As we emerged from the nightmare and began to search for meaning.
Hope, Despair, and Memory (1986)
No one was praying for the night to pass quickly. The stars were but sparks of the immense conflagration that was consuming us. Were this conflagration to be extinguished one day, nothing would be left in the sky but extinct stars and unseeing eyes.
Night (1960)
You, who are so-called illegal aliens, must know that no human being is "illegal." That is a contradiction in terms. Human beings can be beautiful or more beautiful, they can be fat or skinny, they can be right or wrong, but illegal? How can a human being be illegal?
The Refugee (1985)