54 Elie Wiesel Quotes About Human Rights and the Lessons the Holocaust Has Taught Us (2024)

As a Holocaust survivor himself, Elie Wiesel managed to talk about the right to humane living, social justice and the importance of caring for our fellow man through his numerous books. These Elie Wiesel quotes will tell all about it.

Born in Sighet, Romania in 1928, to an Orthodox-Hasidic family, Elie Wiesel was a Jewish author, professor, political activist and a Nobel laureate. He wrote 57 books, most of them Holocaust literature and novels, including “Night”, a work in which he recounted his experiences as a Jewish prisoner in the Auschwitz and Buchenwald Nazi concentration camps.

After the liberation of Buchenwald by the U.S. Army, he moved to France where he studied humanities at the Sorbonne, in Paris and later started working as a journalist for Israeli newspapers and magazines. In 1955 he moved to the United States and became a U.S. citizen. He was a professor of Humanities at Boston University, which inspired by his legacy created the Elie Wiesel Center for Jewish Studies. Actively involved with human rights issues and Jewish causes throughout his life, he also played a major role in the creation of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. and together with his wife, Marion, he established the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity. Elie Wiesel died on the morning of July 2, 2016, at his home in Manhattan.

Indifference Quote by Elie Wiesel

Definitely his most famous and inspiring quote urging us to connect and actively take part in the formation of the future. It encompasses the essence of his philosophy and his message to humanity.

Elie Wiesel Quotes About Social Justice

There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest. Elie Wiesel
We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Elie Wiesel
No human race is superior; no religious faith is inferior. All collective judgments are wrong. Only racists make them. Elie Wiesel
I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides. Elie Wiesel
Only the guilty are guilty. Their children are not. Elie Wiesel

I’ve been fighting my entire adult life for men and women everywhere to be equal and to be different. But there is one right I would not grant anyone. And that is the right to be indifferent. Elie Wiesel
Wherever men and women are persecuted because of their race, religion, or political views, that place must — at that moment — become the center of the universe. Elie Wiesel
We must choose between the violence of adults and the smiles of children, between the ugliness of hate and the will to oppose it. Between inflicting suffering and humiliation on our fellow man and offering him the solidarity and hope he deserves. Or not. Elie Wiesel, Open Heart

Elie Wiesel Inspirational Quotes

For the dead and the living, we must bear witness. Elie Wiesel
There are victories of the soul and spirit. Sometimes, even if you lose, you win. Elie Wiesel
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. Elie Wiesel
If the only prayer you say throughout your life is “Thank You,” then that will be enough. Elie Wiesel
Friendship marks a life even more deeply than love. Love risks degenerating into obsession, friendship is never anything but sharing. Elie Wiesel
There is divine beauty in learning… To learn means to accept the postulate that life did not begin at my birth. Others have been here before me, and I walk in their footsteps. The books I have read were composed by generations of fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, teachers and disciples. I am the sum total of their experiences, their quests. And so are you. Elie Wiesel
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. Elie Wiesel
If life is not a celebration, why remember it ? If life — mine or that of my fellow man — is not an offering to the other, what are we doing on this earth? Elie Wiesel, Open Heart
Most people think that shadows follow, precede or surround beings or objects. The truth is that they also surround words, ideas, desires, deeds, impulses and memories. Elie Wiesel
Life is really fascinated only by death. It vibrates only when it comes in contact with death. Elie Wiesel, Day
Even in darkness it is possible to create light and encourage compassion. That it is possible to feel free inside a prison. That even in exile, friendship exists and can become an anchor. That one instant before dying, man is still immortal. Elie Wiesel, Open Heart

Related: Best 92 Quotes About Justice (That Will Make You Question What Is Fair)

“Night” Elie Wiesel Quotes

Human suffering anywhere concerns men and women everywhere. Elie Wiesel, Night
To forget the dead would be akin to killing them a second time. Elie Wiesel, Night
I pray to the God within me that He will give me the strength to ask Him the right questions. Elie Wiesel, Night
Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, which has turned my life into one long night, seven times cursed and seven times sealed….Never shall I forget those moments which murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to dust. Never shall I forget these things, even if I am condemned to live as long as God Himself. Never. Elie Wiesel, Night
I shall always remember that smile. From what world did it come from? Elie Wiesel, Night
For in the end, it is all about memory, its sources and its magnitude, and, of course, its consequences. Elie Wiesel, Night
One more stab to the heart, one more reason to hate. One less reason to live. Elie Wiesel, Night
One day when I was able to get up, I decided to look at myself in the mirror on the opposite wall. I had not seen myself since the ghetto. From the depths of the mirror, a corpse was contemplating me. The look in his eyes as he gazed at me has never left me. Elie Wiesel, Night
…I believe it important to emphasize how strongly I feel that books, just like people, have a destiny. Some invite sorrow, others joy, some both. Elie Wiesel, Night
Everybody around us was weeping. Someone began to recite Kaddish, the prayer for the dead. I don’t know whether, during the history of the Jewish people, men have ever before recited Kaddish for themselves. Elie Wiesel, Night
They are committing the greatest indignity human beings can inflict on one another: telling people who have suffered excruciating pain and loss that their pain and loss were illusions. Elie Wiesel, Night

Short Elie Wiesel Quotes

To forget a Holocaust is to kill twice. Elie Wiesel
Those who kept silent yesterday will remain silent tomorrow. Elie Wiesel, Night
Ultimately, the only power to which man should aspire is that which he exercises over himself. Elie Wiesel
Think higher, feel deeper. Elie Wiesel
One person of integrity can make a difference. Elie Wiesel
No human being is illegal. Elie Wiesel
God is God because he remembers. Elie Wiesel
Peace is our gift to each other. Elie Wiese
Which is worse? Killing with hate or killing without hate? Elie Wiesel
I don’t want my past to become anyone else’s future. Elie Wiesel
Music does not replace words, it gives tone to the words. Elie Wiesel
Indifference to me, is the epitome of all evil. Elie Wiesel
Whoever survives a test, whatever it may be, must tell the story. That is his duty. Elie Wiesel
Not to transmit an experience is to betray it. Elie Wiesel
Indifference is the sign of sickness, a sickness of the soul more contagious than any other. Elie Wiesel, The Judges
Only fanatics — in religion as well as in politics — can find a meaning in someone else’s death. Elie Wiesel
Questions outlive the answers. Elie Weisel
Suffering pulls us farther away from other human beings. It builds a wall made of cries and contempt to separate us. Elie Wiesel, Day
Life belongs to man, but the meaning of life is beyond him. Elie Wiesel, The Judges
When you listen to a witness, you become a witness. Elie Wiesel
I have not lost faith in God. I have moments of anger and protest. Sometimes I’ve been closer to him for that reason. Elie Wiesel
Violence is not the answer. Terrorism is the most dangerous of answers. Elie Wiesel

Elie Wiesel Quotes On Images

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