Saturday, January 26, 2008

Thought For The Day - Elie Wiesel

The opposite of love is not hate, but indifference;
the opposite of beauty is not ugliness, but indifference;
the opposite of learning is not ignorance, but indifference;
Hatred cannot be anything but evil.
Hatred contaminates me.
We cannot give in to hatred;
To preserve humanity we must fight indifference.

13 comments:

  1. I have about 15 minutes before I fall asleep in this chair, after a long day of packing and cleaning the other house.

    Glad I decided to use my blogtime wisely and land here- this is brilliant.

    Thank you!

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  2. Thank you for these wise words.

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  3. Wisdom learned through great suffering. We must listen to him.

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  4. What Fran and Jan said... And may God teach us all not to be indifferent.

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  5. God bless Elie. And God bless you.

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  6. Thanks for reminding us of Elie Wiesel on this Holocaust Remembrance Day. He is a remarkable man.

    In addition to indifference, fear keeps love from entering into many situations. Probably during the Holocaust, there were a host of individuals who were not indifferent, but they were so terrorized and paralyzed by fear they found it impossible to stand up and be counted. Their fear blocked the love of God that would have prevented the devastation that ensued.

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  7. Boocat, it's true. Fear is often a great paralyzer.

    Indifference to the sufferings of others dehumanizes them and us.

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  8. Just saying hi, from the Charlotte airport. Free wifi and a 2-hour layover.

    Thank you so much, for everything.

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  9. Kirstin, thank you for your work in New Orleans. I'm so happy that we were able to meet, but I'm sorry that you return home a little worse for wear - at least physically. Nevertheless, I pray you are spiritually renewed and uplifted.

    Have a safe rest of your trip.

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  10. absolutely right. I heard something very like this somewhere else recently...wise words.

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  11. Diane, I do believe that harboring hate is poisonous. As to indifference I think of the confession of sins in the Book of Common Prayer:

    ...we confess that we have sinned against you in thought, word, and deed, by what we have done, and by what we have left undone.

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