31 quotes
If he believes time has run its course,
A man is a sad thing too.
Collected Poems (1984)
Those who deny Auschwitz would be ready to remake it.
Monsters exist, but they are too few in number to be truly dangerous; more dangerous are the common men, the functionaries ready to believe and to act without asking questions.
It is not at all an idle matter trying to define what a human being is.
A country is considered the more civilised the more the wisdom and efficiency of its laws hinder a weak man from becoming too weak and a powerful one too powerful.
If This Is a Man (1947)
In countries and epochs in which communication is impeded, soon all other liberties wither; discussion dies by inanition, ignorance of the opinion of others becomes rampant, imposed opinions triumph.
The Drowned and the Saved (1986)
I read somewhere — and the person who wrote this was not a mountaineer but a sailor — that the sea’s only gifts are harsh blows and, occasionally, the chance to feel strong.
What to do now? How to detach yourself?
With every work that’s born you die a little.
Collected Poems (1984)
The aims of life are the best defense against death.
The Drowned and the Saved (1986)
Is anything sadder than a train
That leaves when it’s supposed to,
That has only one voice,
Only one route?
There’s nothing sadder. Except perhaps a cart horse,
Shut between two shafts
And unable even to look sideways.
Collected Poems (1984)
Sooner or later in life everyone discovers that perfect happiness is unrealizable, but there are few who pause to consider the antithesis: that perfect unhappiness is equally unattainable.
If This Is a Man (1947)
I am not even alive enough to know how to kill myself.
If This Is a Man (1947)
Translation is difficult work because the barriers between languages are higher than is generally thought … knowing how to avoid the traps is not enough to make a good translator.
Consider whether this is a man,
Who labours in the mud
Who knows no peace
Who fights for a crust of bread
Who dies at a yes or a no.
Collected Poems (1984)
Death begins with the shoes; for most of us, they show themselves to be instruments of torture, which after a few hours of marching cause painful sores which become fatally infected.
If This Is a Man (1947)
I'm a libertine, but it's not my specialty.
The Wrench (1978)
It happened, therefore it can happen again: this is the core of what we have to say. It can happen, and it can happen everywhere.
The Drowned and the Saved (1986)
Intolerance is inclined to censor, and censorship promotes ignorance of the arguments of others and thus intolerance itself: a rigid, vicious circle that is hard to break.
The Drowned and the Saved (1986)
We who survived the Camps are not true witnesses. We are those who, through prevarication, skill or luck, never touched bottom. Those who have, and who have seen the face of the Gorgon, did not return, or returned wordless.
To be considered stupid and to be told so is more painful than being called gluttonous, mendacious, violent, lascivious, lazy, cowardly: every weakness, every vice, has found its defenders, its rhetoric, its ennoblement and exaltation, but stupidity hasn’t.