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History Quotes by Elie Wiesel

23 History quotes by Elie Wiesel

All History quotes Elie Wiesel’s page

Elie Wiesel’s words on History carry the weight of lived experience and moral urgency. In these twenty‑three excerpts he reminds us that remembering the past is a responsibility, offering a solemn yet hopeful lens through which to view our collective story.

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If we want to know history, I would think there would be every reason to.

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In Jewish history there are no coincidences.

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The story [of the Sacrifice of Isaac ] is much more a part of theology than of history.

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As you know, I describe Shirat ha-Yam as part of an epic story that has qualities of history and which also has…

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It was like a page torn from a history book, from some historical novel about the captivity of babylon or Spanish Inquisition.

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I think so. 9/11 has been a turning point in American history, there's no doubt about that.

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Historically, I come from Jewish history. I had the classic upbringing in the Yeshiva, learning, learning, and more learning.

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Even if people tell me they have historical proof [that it is not historical], that doesn't really bother me.

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Except if it has some historical meaning for them to have Tibet under their control. I don't understand why [ Chinese] want…

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[Shirat ha-Yam ] is one of the earliest, if not the earliest, pieces of Biblical literature that we possess. It is much…

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If anyone had told us in 1945 that there are certain battles we'll have to fight again we wouldn't have believed it.…

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What of the Exodus? That too, is a wonderful story, but from the viewpoint of an historian, it is - to use…

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Go over to Greece with the Iliad and Odyssey. These have elements of history, and they have non-historical elements. It's very difficult…

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Worse still is that mankind - the non-Jewish world - learned nothing from the Holocaust: The event which had no precedent in…

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I am not so naïve as to believe that this slim volume will change the course of history or shake the conscience…

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Remembering is a noble and necessary act. The call of memory, the call to memory, reaches us from the very dawn of…

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The Holocaust is the most documented tragedy in recorded history. And therefore, later on, if there will be a later on, anyone…

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If the Book of the Law could be forgotten for so many years, who knows what was done to it during those…

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[My approach to the Bible, history does really matter.] Everything matters. But I have priorities. For instance, for me to know whether…

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John XXI was a very great pope and he's the one who actually corrected the liturgy. He did so because of his…

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“With the years and convulsions of history, the word-as reductionist as the dictionary itself-has undergone absurd metamorphoses. In some countries, they prefer…

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It all happened so fast. The ghetto. The deportation. The sealed cattle car. The fiery altar upon which the history of our…

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Now, when I hear that Christians are getting together in order to defend the people of Israel, of course it brings joy…

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More by Elie Wiesel

A religious person answers to God, not to the elected or non-elected official.

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One more stab to the heart, one more reason to hate. One less reason to live.

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“What all these victims need above all is to know that they are not alone; that we are not forgetting them, that when their…

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I feel that books, just like people, have a destiny. Some invite sorrow, others joy, some both.

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[Chinese] are a huge empire now, you'll soon be - in a few years two billion people in the world. So, you should be…

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Did I write it so as not to go mad or, on the contrary, to go mad in order to understand the nature of…

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Take the story of Cain and Abel. Why were we given that story? Scientifically, you may have an explanation for it, but I'm not…

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Mankind must remember that peace is not God's gift to his creatures; peace is our gift to each other.

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The world? The world is not interested in us. Today, everything is possible, even the crematoria...

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every question possessed a power that was lost in the answer . . .

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I think this century more than any other really has seen the phenomenon of people being uprooted in such numbers, such a degree. They…

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His cold eyes stared at me. At last, he said wearily: "I have more faith in Hitler than in anyone else. He alone has…

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As you know, I describe Shirat ha-Yam as part of an epic story that has qualities of history and which also has qualities of…

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Every Jew, somewhere in his being, should set apart a zone of hate -healthy virile hate- for what the German personifies and for what…

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“Did hope help us to survive, or not? Too many families clung to it all through the war, thus falling into the enemy's trap.…

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