20 Elie Wiesel Quotes to Help Restore Your Faith in Humanity

Elie Wiesel (born in Romania, September 30, 1928 – died in New York July 2, 2016) is widely known as an American-Jewish writer, author of 57 books, professor and political activist, and one of the most famous Auschwitz survivors.

When he was 15, as the German army occupied Hungary, Elie and his family were placed in one of the confinement ghettos set up in his hometown.

Two months later, all Jews were deported to the Auschwitz concentration camp, and most of them were killed soon after arrival. Wiesel and his father were the only ones in the family to be spared, as they were fit for labor. The only thing that kept him going in the concentration camp was knowing that his father was still alive. Sadly, his father was beaten to death shortly before the camp was liberated, and Elie was unable to help him.

The book that made him famous – Night – describes everything he went through, both during his imprisonment in the Nazi camp and after. Recurring topics in Elie Wiesel's bppks revolve around how every human value was destroyed in the harsh conditions of the camp, the shame he felt for resenting his father when he was in a helpless state, the disgust for humanity and the “death of God”.

In 1986, Elie Wiesel was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace for overcoming the horrible experience at Auschwitz and for sending a message of peace and human dignity. He is also a founding member of the New York Human Rights Foundation.

Overcoming tragedy makes us strong. So here are 20 Elie Wiesel quotes that will restore your faith in humanity and make you see the good that’s still out there.

There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest.

Friendship marks a life even more deeply than love. Love risks degenerating into obsession, friendship is never anything but sharing.

 

When a person doesn’t have gratitude, something is missing in his or her humanity. A person can almost be defined by his or her attitude toward gratitude.

One person of integrity can make a difference.

No human race is superior; no religious faith is inferior. All collective judgments are wrong. Only racists make them.

If the only prayer you say throughout your life is "Thank You," then that will be enough.

I pray to the God within me that He will give me the strength to ask Him the right questions.

I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides.

Think higher, feel deeper.

We must not see any person as an abstraction. Instead, we must see in every person a universe with its own secrets, with its own treasures, with its own sources of anguish, and with some measure of triumph.

And I feel gratitude in my heart each time I can meet someone and look at his or her smile.

Because of indifference, one dies before one actually dies.

Hope is like peace. It is not a gift from God. It is a gift only we can give one another.

Once you bring life into the world, you must protect it. We must protect it by changing the world.

For me, every hour is grace.

Just as despair can come to one only from other human beings, hope, too, can be given to one only by other human beings.

When language fails, violence becomes a language; I never had that feeling.

For in my tradition, as a Jew, I believe that whatever we receive we must share.

A destruction, an annihilation that only man can provoke, only man can prevent.

If I were immersed in constant melancholy, I would not be who I am.