Elie Wiesel Quotes

Take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim.

World leaders and, particularly, Muslim religious leaders need to stand up and protect the oppressed.

You are either on the side of the oppressed or on the side of the oppressor. You can't be neutral.

I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.

You can only watch injustice go on for so long until you're compelled to say something. To speak out against it.

For as long as I can remember, I've always been interested in issues of social justice, political freedom, and civil rights.

Where I come from, if you see your family and friends' civil rights being taken away, you speak up and do everything you can to keep that from happening!

I think it is incumbent on all human beings to oppose injustice in every form.

No one who passively endures an injustice against himself has the material in him to struggle for the rights of others. The one who patiently forbears becomes an accessory to the injustice done to others. He who resists the injustice which he himself meets can open up the way to a higher right for others.

If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.

Wherever there was injustice, war, discrimination against women, gays and the disadvantaged, I did my best to show up and exert moral persuasion.

I have in my bones, and in my blood, the knowledge that you have to help the people who are persecuted.

If we won't fight injustice wherever we see it, then we are not safe from suffering injustice ourselves.

Oxfam is part of a global movement for social justice. We mainly work to fight for economic and social rights for people without a voice or people who are oppressed.

I want to thank the fans across the country who have supported me in this effort to fight for equality and justice. I want to thank those that have dedicated their lives to this fight, as I know that it is not easy. And I want to challenge those who stay silent to be courageous and use your platforms to become part of the solution. God Bless.

I have a voice, and I'm trying to use it to be the voice for all the innocent people who don't have one.

I have a big passion about civil rights for everyone - whoever is being downtrodden at the moment, it doesn't matter: racial discrimination or sexual orientation or gender. Whatever it is, I'm there. I think I was a born civil rights activist. I can't stand the smashing of a community. It's not fair and it's not right.

Speaking out is important for me because everyone should be treated equally.

I am aware that in presenting myself as the advocate of the Indians and their rights, I shall stand very much alone.

No change can come if those who are impacted the most by discrimination are not willing to stand up for themselves.

I have lectured at the U.N. and travelled widely, giving lectures on human rights and gender inequalities in universities. But this is a life I do not wish to live. I don't want to be a showcase, I want to be in a battlefield where I can stand beside the oppressed and the poor.

My only agenda is to bring attention to otherwise ignored and shunned lives.

Facing sexism and racism and classism and transphobia, there are ways to choose to act in those situations, and there shouldn't be a prescriptive list of things that you have to say.

I came to poetry through the urgent need to denounce injustice, exploitation, humiliation. I know that's not enough to change the world. But to remain silent would have been a kind of intolerable complicity.

There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest.