206 Quotes by Primo Levi

Everybody is somebody's Jew. And today the Palestinians are the Jews of the Israelis.

There is Auschwitz, and so there cannot be God.

We who survived the Camps are not true witnesses. We are those who, through prevarication, skill or luck, never touched bottom. Those who have, and who have seen the face of the Gorgon, did not return, or returned wordless.

Monsters exist, but they are too few in numbers to be truly dangerous. More dangerous are…the functionaries ready to believe and act without asking questions.

Dissention, diversity, the grain of salt and mustard are needed: Fascism does not want them, forbids them, and that’s why you are not a Fascist; it wants everybody to be the same, but you are not.

Man’s capacity to dig himself in, to secrete a shell, to build around himself a tenuous barrier of defence, even in apparently desperate circumstances, is astonishing and merits a serious study.

If understanding is impossible, knowing is imperative, because what happened could happen again.

I am constantly amazed by man’s inhumanity to man.

The sea’s only gifts are harsh blows and occasionally the chance to feel strong.