Authors:

A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
N
O
P
Q
R
S
T
U
V
W
X
Y
Z

Elie Wiesel Quotes - Page 17

All Quotes Adam And Eve Age Ambition Apathy Art Attitude Auschwitz Children Communication Community Compassion Culture Darkness Death Destiny Doubt Education Eternity Evil Exodus Faith Fighting Freedom Genocide Giving God Grace Gratitude Hate Hatred Heart Helping Others Holocaust Home Hope Humanity Hurt Imagination Immortality Injustice Inspirational Integrity Isaac Joy Killing Language Life Literature Loneliness Love Lying Madness Making A Difference Mankind Memories Military Moses Pain Passion Past Peace Philosophy Positivity Prayer Quality Racism Responsibility Sacrifice Silence Sin Son Soul Students Suffering Survival Survivor Teaching Today Tradition Tragedy Understanding Violence Waiting Wall War Writing Youth

If the Book of the Law could be forgotten for so many years, who knows what was done to it during those years? Maybe it was lost later, too. And another one replaced it, and that one is no longer the original text.

If the Book of the Law could be forgotten for so many years, who knows what was done to it during those years? Maybe it was lost later, too. And another one replaced it, and that one is no longer the original text. These are questions that perturb me much more than whether it's history or not history.

Book, Years, Law

Source: www.biblicalarchaeology.org

But the forces of evil have not abdicated. The malevolent ghosts of hatred are resurgent with a fury and a boldness that are as astounding as they are nauseating: ethnic conflicts, religious riots, anti-Semitic incidents here, there, and everywhere. What is wrong with these morally degenerate people that they abuse their freedom, so recently won?

Religious, People, Evil

Elie Wiesel (2007). “The Judges: A Novel”, p.140, Schocken

Every nation has its prestigious military academies - or so few of them - that reach not only the virtues of peace but also the art of attaining it? I mean attaining and protecting it by means other than weapons, the tools of war. Why are we surprised whenever war recedes and yields to peace?

Art, Military, War

Josiah has a tremendous reputation in the text. He rediscovered the Book of the Law; you remember how Hilkiah the High Priest somehow found it [2 Kings 22:8].

Kings, Book, Law

Source: www.biblicalarchaeology.org

Occasionally, I come to moments of anguish in the text.

Moments, Anguish

Source: www.biblicalarchaeology.org

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?

Writing, Order, Mad

Elie Wiesel (2012). “Night”, p.4, Macmillan

What of the Exodus? That too, is a wonderful story, but from the viewpoint of an historian, it is - to use a word scholars love - problematic. Let's say there are doubts, to say the least, among many scholars, as to whether the Exodus actually occurred. That's a historical issue.

Issues, Historical, Doubt

Source: www.biblicalarchaeology.org

We've sort of agreed that the account of Adam and Eve is a story.

Stories, Adam, Adam And Eve

Source: www.biblicalarchaeology.org

The Bible is interpreted by the Talmud. Except, in Rabbinic tradition, a Talmudic law has the weight of the Biblical law. Sometimes we say in a prayer, "Blessed are Thou, O God, who has ordered us and commended us," to do something. But you don't find that "something" in the Bible; you find it in the Talmud. So Talmudic law becomes as important as Biblical law.

Prayer, Blessed, Biblical

Source: www.biblicalarchaeology.org

The sky is so close to the sea that it is difficult to tell which is reflected in the other, which one needs the other, which one is dominating the other.

Sea, Sky, Needs

Elie Wiesel (2006). “Day: A Novel”, p.45, Macmillan

Judaism is in a sense a Rabbinic, Talmudic religion, rather than a Biblical religion.

Biblical, Judaism

Source: www.biblicalarchaeology.org

The Biblical text does not have punctuation marks like periods and question marks. Where we end sentences is a matter of interpretation.

Biblical, Punctuation Marks, Doe

Source: www.biblicalarchaeology.org

In the beginning was belief, foolish belief, and faith, empty faith, and illusion, the terrible illusion. ... We believed in God, had faith in man, and lived with the illusion that in each one of us is a sacred spark from the fire of the shekinah, that each one carried in his eyes and in his soul the sign of God. This was the source—if not the cause—of all our misfortune.

Eye, Men, Fire

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.

Encouragement, Two, Historical

From the depths of the mirror, a corpse gazed back at me. The look in his eyes, as they stared into mine, has never left me.

Eye, Night, Mirrors

Elie Wiesel, Harry J. Cargas (1993). “Telling the tale: a tribute to Elie Wiesel on the occasion of his 65th birthday : essays, reflections, and poems”, Time Being Press

Go over to Greece with the Iliad and Odyssey. These have elements of history, and they have non-historical elements. It's very difficult to pull them apart. And I think there's not much reason to.

Thinking, Historical, Elements

Source: www.biblicalarchaeology.org

Personally, as a student who loves words, who loves texts, I am concerned with finding something in the text from within.

Students, Concerned, Findings

Source: www.biblicalarchaeology.org

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

Thinking, Would Be, Want

Source: www.biblicalarchaeology.org

If you read Exodus 15 carefully, it describes a storm at sea. This is the old Yahwistic source. In the retelling of the story in the later Priestly source, it is more miraculous: The water stands up on either side like a wall. There are walls of water standing up. As you move back in time, oddly enough, the story becomes more historical.

Wall, Moving, Sea

Source: www.biblicalarchaeology.org

I was 15, not 14, when I was inside there [Auschwitz], 15, and for me both were actually a surprise.

Surprise, Auschwitz

Source: www.nobelprize.org

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 the mythological, of an epic.

Epic, Yams, Quality

Source: www.biblicalarchaeology.org

When I say it doesn't make much difference, I mean in terms of the importance of the piece of literature.

Mean, Differences, Pieces

Source: www.biblicalarchaeology.org

It's not only America. Terrorism now is a threat to the whole world.

America, World, Terrorism

Source: dailynorthwestern.com

But because of his telling, many who did not believe have come to believe, and some who did not care have come to care. He tells the story, out of infinite pain, partly to honor the dead, but also to warn the living - to warn the living that it could happen again and that it must never happen again. Better than 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. (vi)

Pain, Believe, Heart

Elie Wiesel (1960). “Night”, Bantam

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

People, Historical, Proof

Source: www.biblicalarchaeology.org

You May Also Like: