My interpretation is different. God asks Cain, "Where is your brother Abel?" [Genesis 4:9] And Cain answers "Lo yadati, "I don't know" or "I didn't know." Then comes a period, followed by "Am I my brother's keeper?"

Elie Wiesel

Categorized in : Brother Different Cain

Whenever an angel says "Be not afraid!" you'd better start worrying. A big assignment is on the way.

Elie Wiesel

angel worry way

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

Elie Wiesel

not-interested today world

From time immemorial, people have talked about peace without achieving it. Do we simply lack enough experience? Though we talk peace, we wage war. Sometimes we even wage war in the name of peace. . . . War may be too much a part of history to be eliminatedever.

Elie Wiesel

names war people

What do all my books have in common? A commitment to memory.

Elie Wiesel

memories book commitment

A voice behind me asked, "Where is God? Where is He? Where can He be now?" and a voice within me answered: "Where? Here He is - He has been hanged here, on these gallows."

Elie Wiesel

gallows atheism voice

A disciple came to the celebrated Master of the Good Name with a question. “Rabbi, how are we to distinguish between a true master and a fake?” And the master of the good name said, “When you meet a person who poses as a master, ask him a question: whether he knows how to purify your thoughts. If he says that he knows, then he is a fake.

Elie Wiesel

fake masters names

I am much more afraid of my good deeds that please me than of my bad deeds that repel me.

Elie Wiesel

please-me good-deeds deeds

What I don't like today is, to put it coarsely, the phony Hasidism, the phony mysticism. Many students say, "Teach me mysticism." It's a joke.

Elie Wiesel

phony students today

If you ask me what I want to achieve, it's to create an awareness, which is already the beginning of teaching.

Elie Wiesel

awareness teaching want

A man can laugh while he suffers.

Elie Wiesel

suffering laughing men

Paris: city of encounters, of furtive and painful discoveries. All isms converge there, including the anti-isms, all the revolutionaries too, including the counterrevolutionaries .

Elie Wiesel

paris cities discovery

Holy War is a contradiction of terms.

Elie Wiesel

contradiction war school

My loyalty to my people, to our people, and to Israel comes first and prevents me from saying anything critical of Israel outside Israel… As a Jew I see my role as a melitz yosher, a defender of Israel: I defend even her mistakes… I must identify with whatever Israel does – even with her errors.

Elie Wiesel

errors loyalty mistake

The danger lies in forgetting.

Elie Wiesel

danger forget lying

I describe incidents which may or may not have happened but which are true.

Elie Wiesel

incidents holocaust may

Why is war such an easy option? Why does peace remain such an elusive goal? We know statesmen skilled at waging war, but where are those dedicated enough to humanity to find a way to avoid war

Elie Wiesel

goal humanity war

Yet another last night. The last night at home, the last night in the ghetto, the last night in the train, and, now, the last night in Buna. How much longer were our lives to be dragged out from one 'last night' to another?

Elie Wiesel

ghetto home night

The sincere Christian knows that what died in Auschwitz was not the Jewish people but Christianity.

Elie Wiesel

holocaust christian people

I was the accuser, God the accused. My eyes were open and I was alone - terribly alone in a world without God and without (hu)man(ity).

Elie Wiesel

thought-provoking eye men

If the victims are my problem, the killers are yours.

Elie Wiesel

killers thought-provoking problem