Elie Wiesel Quotes

Learning to read the Bible in the light of the times in which it was written is critical.

What Jerry has done, in a masterful way, is go through and select portions of the Scripture and put words in Jesus' mouth that are legitimate because they already appear in the Bible.

Give me any two pages of the Bible and I'll give you a picture.

I think there's some pretty amazing language in the Bible.

I've read the Bible before, a couple of times cover to cover.

When you read the Bible, you are reading the Holy Spirit and not history books. When you read history books, you are reading about events, but the Bible is not an event. So, when you are reading the Holy Spirit, you are supposed to be carried along by it.

I prefer to read into other people's songs what I want to hear in them.

If you actually read the Bible, you can see there's a whole lot more information in there than the way we interpret the Bible. Because there are single lines in the Bible where if you just take them at face-value, they don't make any sense whatsoever in the world we see, we know, and we understand.

This is the Book. I have read the Bible through many times, and now make it a practice to read it through once every year. It is a book of all others for lawyers, as well as divines; and I pity the man who cannot find in it a rich supply of thought and of rules for conduct. It fits man for life--it prepares him for death.

I think that I've always written about things that are very personal, but initially, I coded everything. I buried everything under layers and layers and layers of code, but the signifiers of my emotionality were there for me. I knew where the magnets were, behind the gyprock, and the magnets were very powerful. I think they had to be powerful for me, otherwise the reader wouldn't have a reciprocal experience.

Those who do succeed in reading the Bible from beginning to end will discover that at least it has a beginning and an end, and some traces of a total structure.

I want to go back to the child I used to be, and to read with the same naiveté [the Pentateuch]. I want to leave science aside and go back to the pure perception offered to me in the text that is waiting there for me year after year.

The Bible is not interested in precisionism unless the context indicates that precision is particularly important.

The Bible writers didn't care that they were bunching together sequences some of which were historical, some preposterous, and some downright manipulative. Faithful recording was not their business; faith was.

The Bible, taken as a whole, can be used to praise or condemn practically any human activity, thought, belief, or practice.

The primary and literal meaning of the Bible, then, is its centripetal or poetic meaning.

Fanciful spiritualizing, so far from yielding God's meaning, actually obscured it. The literal sense is itself the spiritual sense, coming from God and leading to Him.

I read the bible often, not just to prepare for "Noah". I believe it is a very important book.

I think [music and acting], they are connected, all that stuff. It's your emotional self, is pretty much how you do it, I think, from whatever place you do it, whether you're acting or you're singing.

We no longer just take religious identity from our parents, so what's going on? Why are people going to this series, why are people reading so many books about religion? It's because they want answers. The answers are no longer just passed down from generation to generation. It's harder for people. In effect, you have to roll up your sleeve and ask the questions. But if you do it, if you forge your own identity, it can be much more personal and much more meaningful to you.

Simply paying attention allows us to build an emotional connection. Lacking attention, empathy hasn't a chance.

Having emotional connections to things that don't really exist, like looking at a green ball and really loving that green ball, and being sad whether it's around or not. Stuff like that. I've never done acting at this level before so it was a huge challenge for me. It was a hurdle to overcome just to survive.

Taking the Bible too literally is a mistake. It should be read as a guidebook of wisdom and insight.

I prefer to be part of a positive statement. I'm not interested in the psyche of a serial killer. What I'm interested in is creating a situation in which people get some emotional exercise, which makes them feel like human beings and makes them understand that they are part of the human community with all its responsibilities.

Gifts need not be expensive; after all, "it's the thuoght that counts." But I remind you, it is not the thought left in your head that counts; it is the gift that came out of the thought that communicates emotional love.