Quotes about Legacy

Today's wealthy are poor though they don't know it. They can't bring their possessions to where we're all going.

You are the sum total of all that we have been," said the youngster who looked like my former self. "In a way we are the ones to execute John Dawson. Because you can't do it without us. Now, do you see?" I was beginning to understand. An act so absolute as that of killing involves not only the killer but, as well, those who have formed him. In murdering a man I was making them murderers.

Even if I wrote on nothing else, it would never be enough, even if all the survivors did nothing but write about their experiences, it would still not be enough. *Response when asked how much longer is he going to write about the Holocaust.

To live is to betray the dead. We hasten to bury and forget them because we are ashamed; we feel guilty towards them.

I have tried to fight those who would forget. Because if we forget, we are guilty, we are accomplices.

Wasn't forgetfulness a gift of the gods to the ancient world? Without it. Life would be intolerable, wouldn't it? Yes, but the Jews live by other rules. For a Jew, nothing is more important than memory. He is bound to his origins by memory. It is memory that connects him to Abraham, Moses and Rabbi Akiva.

He who doesn't forget God isn't cold in his grave," she said. "What keeps him warm?" I insisted. Her thin voice had become like a whisper: it was a secret. "God himself.

You walk out in the evening with a woman, you tell her that she is beautiful and you love her, and twenty centuries hear what you are saying.

Here, take this knife," he said. "I won't need it anymore. You may find it useful. Also take this spoon. Don't sell it. Quickly! Go ahead, take what I'm giving you!" My inheritance …

My father, an enlightened spirit, believed in man. My grandfather, a fervent Hasid, believed in God. The one taught me to speak, the other to sing. Both loved stories. And when I tell mine, I hear their voices. Whispering from beyond the silenced storm, they are what links the survivor to their memory.

For memory is a blessing: it creates bonds rather than destroys them.

Only one life, it will soon be past, only what's done for Christ will last.