The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference.
Elie WieselRead
Friendship marks a life even more deeply than love. Love risks degenerating into obsession, friendship is never anything but sharing.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Friendship is a profound and fulfilling connection that transcends the intensity of romantic love.
In this quote, Elie Wiesel highlights the unique and essential role that friendship plays in our lives. While romantic love can become possessive or obsessive, true friendship is rooted in mutual understanding and support, providing a stable and enriching relationship that fosters genuine sharing and connection.
Themes
FriendshipLoveSharingConnectionSupport
In practice
Example use cases
I shared this quote at my best friend's wedding to emphasize the importance of their friendship.
More from Elie Wiesel
All quotes →With every cell of my being and with every fiber of my memory I oppose the death penalty in all forms. I do not believe any civilized society should be at the service of death. I don't think it's human to become an agent of the angel of death.
Elie WieselRead
Certain things, certain events, seem inexplicable only for a time: up to the moment when the veil is torn aside.
Elie WieselRead
We're alone, but we are capable of communicating to one another both our loneliness and our desire to break through it. You say, 'I'm alone.' Someone answers, 'I'm alone too.' There's a shift in the scale of power. A bridge is thrown between the two abysses.
Elie WieselRead
No one is as capable of gratitude as one who has escaped the kingdom of night.
Elie WieselRead
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 WieselRead
Similar quotes
What vexes me most is, that my female friends, who could bear me very well a dozen years ago, have now forsaken me, although I am not so old in proportion to them as I formerly was: which I can prove by arithmetic, for then I was double their age, which now I am not. Letter to Alexander Pope. 7 Feb. 1736.
Jonathan SwiftRead
Haec ego non multis (scribo), sed tibi: satis enim magnum alter alteri theatrum sumus. I am writing this not to many, but to you: certainly we are a great enough audience for each other.
EpicurusRead
A good friend who points out mistakes is to be respected, as if he reveals a secret of hidden treasure.
Gautama BuddhaRead
The ease of his manner freed me from painful restraint; the friendly frankness, as correct as cordial, with which he treated me, drew me to him
Charlotte BronteRead
But, of course, it isn't really Good-bye, because the Forest will always be there... and anybody who is Friendly with Bears can find it.
A. A. MilneRead
Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried, Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel; But do not dull thy palm with entertainment Of each new-hatch'd, unfledg'd comrade.
William ShakespeareRead