The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference.
Elie WieselRead
Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Silence in the face of suffering allows oppressors to continue their actions without challenge.
Elie Wiesel's quote emphasizes the dangers of silence when faced with injustice and suffering. It suggests that remaining quiet during moments of oppression not only fails to support the victims but also empowers the perpetrators, allowing them to act without accountability. Thus, speaking out is a moral duty for those who witness injustice.
Themes
SilenceTormentorTormentedInjusticeOppressionSuffering
In practice
Example use cases
During a speech about human rights, one might invoke this quote to highlight the importance of speaking out against injustice.
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
The guilty one is not he who commits the sin, but he who causes the darkness.
Victor HugoRead
He is one of those who has had the wilderness for a pillow, and called a star his brother. Alone. But loneliness can be a communion.
Dag HammarskjoldRead
To see a world in a grain of sand_x000D_ And a heaven in a wild flower,_x000D_ Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,_x000D_ And eternity in an hour.
William BlakeRead
And fantasy it was, for we were not strong, only aggressive; we were not free, merely licensed; we were not compassionate, we were polite; not good, but well behaved. We courted death in order to call ourselves brave, and hid like thieves from life. We substituted good grammar for intellect; we switched habits to simulate maturity; we rearranged lies and called it truth, seeing in the new pattern of an old idea the Revelation and the Word.
Toni MorrisonRead
Truth is found neither in the thesis nor the antithesis, but in an emergent synthesis which reconciles the two.
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich HegelRead
I came with the notion of perhaps saying something for monks and to monks of all religions because I am supposed to be a monk. ... My dear brothers, WE ARE ALREADY ONE. BUT WE IMAGINE THAT WE ARE NOT. And what we have to recover is our original unity. What we have to be is what we are
Thomas MertonRead