The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference.
Elie WieselRead
I was very, very religious. And of course I wrote about it in 'Night.' I questioned God's silence. So I questioned. I don't have an answer for that. Does it mean that I stopped having faith? No. I have faith, but I question it.
Interpretation
The quote expresses a complex relationship between faith and doubt.
Elie Wiesel reflects on his deep religious beliefs and the anguish he faced during moments of questioning God's silence. His statement reveals that questioning faith does not equate to losing it; instead, it highlights the struggle and coexistence of faith and doubt in the human experience.
In practice
During a sermon, one might use this quote to highlight the importance of questioning one's beliefs.
The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference.
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.
Certain things, certain events, seem inexplicable only for a time: up to the moment when the veil is torn aside.
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.
No one is as capable of gratitude as one who has escaped the kingdom of night.
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.
I took comfort, as a kid, in knowing that things had always been as awful and as wonderful as they were now, that the world was always on the edge of total destruction.
Man stands alone in the universe, responsible for his condition, likely to remain in a lowly state, but free to reach above the stars.
Every man who has lived for fifty years has buried a whole world or even two; he has grown used to its disappearance and accustomed to the new scenery of another act: but suddenly the names and faces of a time long dead appear more and more often on his way, calling up series of shades and pictures kept somewhere, "just in case," in the endless catacombs of the memory, making him smile or sigh, and sometimes almost weep.
I wonder how many people I've looked at all my life and never seen.
In this life struggle, here I am among you fully cognizant that a true believer has no fear of what God has ordained for him. Those who are visited by fear live only for their present, under the illusion that the world began with them and will end with their departure.
The young feel tired at the end of an action, the old at the beginning.
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