Elie Wiesel Quotes

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

Politicians, they give the visible aspect of the change, but the change, the root, the anchor are in young people.

In the concentration camps, we discovered this whole universe where everyone had his place. The killer came to kill, and the victims came to die.

The more you ask certain questions, the more dangerous they become.

Sometimes I am asked if I know ‘the response to Auschwitz; I answer that not only do I not know it, but that I don’t even know if a tragedy of this magnitude has a response.

When you die and go to heaven our maker is not going to ask, ‘why didn’t you discover the cure for such and such? why didn’t you become the Messiah?’ The only question we will be asked in that precious moment is ‘why didn’t you become you?’

I believe a human being – if he or she wants to remain human, then he or she must do something with what we have seen, endured, witnessed.

Once upon a time refugee meant somebody who has a refuge, found a place, a haven where he could find refuge.

If God exists, how can we lay claim to freedom, since He is its beginning and its end?

I have to be self-conscious of what I’m trying to do with my life.

If anyone had told us in 1945 that there are certain battles we’ll have to fight again we wouldn’t have believed it. Racism, anti-Semitism, starvation of children and, who would have believed that? At least I was convinced then, naively, that at least something happened in history that, because of myself, certain things cannot happen again.

Bite your lips, little brother…Don’t cry. Keep your anger, your hate, for another day, for later. The day will come but not now…Wait. Clench your teeth and wait.