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It Is Neither Easy Nor Agreeable To Dredge This Abyss Of Viciousness, And Yet I Think It Must Be Done, Because What Could Be Perpetrated Yesterday Could Be Attempted Again Tomorrow, Could Overwhelm Us And Our Children. One Is Tempted To Turn Away With A Grimace And Close One's Mind: This Is A Temptation One Must Resist. In Fact, The Existence Of The Death Squads Had A Meaning, A Message: 'we, The Master Race, Are Your Destroyers, But You Are No Better Than We Are; If We So Wish, And We Do So Wish, We Can Destroy Not Only Your Bodies, But Also Your Souls, Just As We Have Destroyed Ours.

-Primo Levi

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It Is Neither Easy

Primo Levi

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It Is Neither Easy Nor Agreeable To Dredge This Abyss Of Viciousness, And Yet I Think It Must Be Done, Because What Could Be Perpetrated Yesterday Could Be Attempted Again Tomorrow, Could Overwhelm Us And Our Children. One Is Tempted To Turn Away With A Grimace And Close One's Mind: This Is A Temptation One Must Resist. In Fact, The Existence Of The Death Squads Had A Meaning, A Message: 'we, The Master Race, Are Your Destroyers, But You Are No Better Than We Are; If We So Wish, And We Do So Wish, We Can Destroy Not Only Your Bodies, But Also Your Souls, Just As We Have Destroyed Ours.

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The Bond Between A Man And His Profession Is Similar To That Which Ties Him To His Country; It Is Just As Complex, Often Ambivalent, And In General It Is Understood Completely Only When It Is Broken: By Exile Or Emigration In The Case Of One's Country, By Retirement In The Case Of A Trade Or Profession.

Did Chemistry Theorems Exist? No: Therefore You Had To Go Further, Not Be Satisfied With The Quia, Go Back To The Origins, To Mathematics And Physics. The Origins Of Chemistry Were Ignoble, Or At Least Equivocal: The Dens Of The Alchemists, Their Abominable Hodgepodge Of Ideas And Language, Their Confessed Interest In Gold, Their Levantine Swindles Typical Of Charlatans And Magicians; Instead, At The Origin Of Physics Lay The Strenuous Clarity Of The West-archimedes And Euclid.

I Am Not Even Alive Enough To Know How To Kill Myself

Even In This Place One Can Survive, And Therefore One Must Want To Survive, To Tell The Story, To Bear Witness; And That To Survive We Must Force Ourselves To Save At Least The Skeleton, The Scaffolding, The Form Of Civilization. We Are Slaves, Deprived Of Every Right, Exposed To Every Insult, Condemned To Certain Death, But We Still Possess One Power, And We Must Defend It With All Our Strength For It Is The Last — The Power To Refuse Our Consent.

If It Is True That There Is No Greater Sorrow Than To Remember A Happy Time In A State Of Misery, It Is Just As True That Calling Up A Moment Of Anguish In A Tranquil Mood, Seated Quietly At One's Desk, Is A Source Of Profound Satisfaction.

Imagine Now A Man Who Is Deprived Of Everyone He Loves, And At The Same Time Of His House, His Habits, His Clothes, In Short, Of Everything He Possesses: He Will Be A Hollow Man, Reduced To Suffering And Needs, Forgetful Of Dignity And Restraint, For He Who Loses All Often Loses Himself.

We Must Be Listened To: Above And Beyond Our Personal Experience, We Have Collectively Witnessed A Fundamental Unexpected Event, Fundamental Precisely Because Unexpected, Not Foreseen By Anyone. It Happened, Therefore It Can Happen Again: This Is The Core Of What We Have To Say. It Can Happen, And It Can Happen Everywhere.

He Was A Physicist, More Precisely An Astrophysicist, Diligent And Eager But Without Illusions: The Truth Lay Beyond, Inaccessible To Our Telescopes, Accessible To The Initiates. This Was A Long Road Which He Was Traveling With Effort, Wonderment, And Profound Joy. Physics Was Prose: Elegant Gymnastics For The Mind, Mirror Of Creation, The Key To Man's Dominion Over The Planet; But What Is The Stature Of Creation, Of Man And The Planet? His Road Was Long And He Had Barely Started Up It, But I Was His Disciple: Did I Want To Follow Him?

Creation Of Man

It Is This Refrain That We Hear Repeated By Everyone: You Are Not At Home, This Is Not A Sanatorium, The Only Exit Is By Way Of The Chimney. (what Did It Mean? Soon We Were All To Learn What It Meant.)

Darwin Was Not Afraid To Look Deeply Into The Void. His Bold View Can Be Seen As Either Noble And Pessimistic Or Noble And Admirable. For People Of Science, He Is A Hero. Denying Man A Privileged Place In Creation, .. He Reaffirms With His Own Intellectual Courage The Dignity Of Man.

It Is The Duty Of Righteous Men To Make War On All Undeserved Privilege, But One Must Not Forget That This Is A War Without End.

Perhaps Kafka Laughed When He Told Stories [. . . ] Because One Isn't Always Equal To Oneself.

I Am Constantly Amazed By Man's Inhumanity To Man.

Inhumanity To Man

Is Anything Sadder Than A Trainthat Leaves When It's Supposed To,that Has Only One Voice,only One Route?there's Nothing Sadder.except Perhaps A Cart Horse,shut Between Two Shaftsand Unable Even To Look Sideways.

The Future Of Humanity Is Uncertain, Even In The Most Prosperous Countries, And The Quality Of Life Deteriorates; And Yet I Believe That What Is Being Discovered About The Infinitely Large And Infinitely Small Is Sufficient To Absolve This End Of The Century And Millennium. What A Very Few Are Acquiring In Knowledge Of The Physical World Will Perhaps Cause This Period Not To Be Judged As A Pure Return Of Barbarism.

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.

Asking Questions

The Work Of Bestial Degradation, Begun By The Victorious Germans, Had Been Carried To Its Conclusion By The Germans In Defeat.

The Living Are More Demanding; The Dead Can Wait.

Human Memory Is A Marvelous But Fallacious Instrument. The Memories Which Lie Within Us Are Not Carved In Stone; Not Only Do They Tend To Become Erased As The Years Go By, But Often They Change, Or Even Increase By Incorporating Extraneous Features.

We Collected In A Group In Front Of Their Door, And We Experienced Within Ourselves A Grief That Was New For Us, The Ancient Grief Of The People That Has No Land, The Grief Without Hope Of The Exodus Which Is Renewed In Every Century.

Today I Think That If For No Other Reason Than That An Auschwitz Existed, No One In Our Age Should Speak Of Providence.

If A Writer Is Convinced That He Is Honest, Then It Is Very Difficult For Him To Be A Bad Writer.

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Everybody Is Somebody's Jew.

A Country Is Considered The More Civilised The More The Wisdom And Efficiency Of Its Laws Hinder A Weak Man From Becoming Too Weak And A Powerful One Too Powerful.

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I'm A Libertine, But It's Not My Specialty.

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An Enemy Who Sees The Error Of His Ways Ceases To Be An Enemy.

I Live In My House As I Live Inside My Skin: I Know More Beautiful, More Ample, More Sturdy And More Picturesque Skins: But It Would Seem To Me Unnatural To Exchange Them For Mine.

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A Man Who Would Mutilate Himself Is Well Damned, Isn't He?

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For He Who Loses All Often Easily Loses Himself.

At That Time I Had Not Yet Been Taught The Doctrine I Was Later To Learn So Hurriedly In The Lager: That Man Is Bound To Pursue His Own Ends By All Possible Means, While He Who Errs But Once Pays Dearly

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