Primo Levi Quotes

Biography: Primo Levi is best known for his harrowing memoir "If This Is a Man," ... more Biography: Primo Levi is best known for his harrowing memoir "If This Is a Man," which recounts his experiences as a Holocaust survivor. Born in 1919 in Turin, Italy, Levi was a chemist by profession. His literary works, which blend his scientific knowledge and personal ordeal, have left a profound impact on Holocaust literature. less

"The plague spread like a wave that would have submerged the dikes, the dams, all the obstacles that men had planted on its path; and maybe at this point it is more important to survive than to conquer""He who has been a soldier carries with him a memory mercilessly imprinted in him, and it will never leave him""The bond between a genuine man and his dog is a bond of mutual respect and loyalty""An enemy who sees the error of his ways ceases to be an enemy""The sea is an immense desert where man is never lonely, for he feels life stirring on all sides""Sooner or later in life, everyone discovers that perfect happiness is unrealizable, but there are few who pause to consider the antithesis: that perfect unhappiness is equally unattainable""Those who deny Auschwitz would be ready to remake it""The aims of life are the best defense against death""There is no greater sin than that of willful ignorance""As for me, I thought that it would be enough just to mimic the prominent personages we came across or the grown-ups we encountered""It is man's ability to make tools that makes other animals his prey and that has enabled him to develop cooperating societies and to conquer his environment""A country is considered the more civilized the more the wisdom and efficiency of its laws hinder a weak man from becoming too weak or a powerful one too powerful""Our ignorance allowed us to live, as you are in exile and know that you are competing inside the world and against the world, without recourse to perspective or mediation""We are all complicated human beings, and we must deal with various sides of our character""Human memory is a marvelous but fallacious instrument""Monsters exist, but they are too few in number to be truly dangerous. More dangerous are the common men, the functionaries ready to believe and to act without asking questions""For a country is considered the more civilized the more the wisdom and efficiency of its laws hinder a weak man from becoming too weak or a powerful one too powerful""If this is a man, I was, and I was sent to the end of the Nazi hell on earth because of my racial category and my politics"

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