There is Auschwitz, and so there cannot be God.
Primo LeviRead
The living are more demanding; the dead can wait.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes that the needs and concerns of the living take precedence over those who have passed away.
Primo Levi's quote highlights the urgency and importance of addressing the needs, responsibilities, and emotions of those who are still alive. It serves as a reminder that while we may honor the memory of the dead, our actions and attentions should be focused on supporting and caring for the living, as they face immediate challenges and experiences that require our engagement and action.
In practice
In a memorial speech, one might say this quote to remind attendees that while we remember those we've lost, we must also support those who are still with us.
There is Auschwitz, and so there cannot be God.
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.
To destroy a man is difficult, almost as difficult as to create one: it has not been easy, nor quick, but you Germans have succeeded. Here we are, docile under your gaze; from our side you have nothing more to fear; no acts of violence, no words of defiance, not even a look of judgment.
They sensed that what had happened around them and in their presence, and in them, was irrevocable. Never again could it be cleansed; it would prove that man, the human species - we, in short - had the potential to construct an enormity of pain, and that pain is the only force created from nothing, without cost and without effort. It is enough not to see, not to listen, not to act.
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.
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.
To be able to look life in the face: that's worth living in a garret for, isn't it?
I got my Bachelor's degree in nursing and worked nine years - even taught nursing in a college - before I stopped and said to myself, 'This is not who I am. I am not really a nurse inside. I'm a writer.'
The town was paper, but the memories were not.
Everything was coming my way, but I was going down. I was painfully empty.
To me this is the first principle of life, the foundational principle, and a lesson you can't learn at the feet of any wise man: Get up! The art of living is simply getting up after you've been knocked down.
Think of life as a voyage. The truest liver of the truest life is like a voyager who, as he sails, is not indifferent to all the beauty of the sea around him.
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