# Primo Levi's most important quotes (with the book they come from)

"Consider if this is a man", "If understanding is impossible, knowing is necessary" and "It happened, therefore it can happen again": the most quoted lines of Primo Levi, from If This Is a Man and The Truce to The Periodic Table and The Drowned and the Saved, with sources.

- 23 votes · 17 items
- Jul 9, 2024 · C. Martino
- https://even.best/en/l/5085/primo-levi-s-most-important-quotes-with-the-book-they-come-from

## Top 17

1. **Monsters exist, but they are too few in number to be truly dangerous; more dangerous are the common men, the functionaries ready to believe and to obey.** (2 · ▲3 ▼1) — Afterword to If This Is a Man (1976).
2. **It easily happens to someone who has lost everything to lose himself.** (2 · ▲2 ▼0) — If This Is a Man (1947), cap. II.
3. **The conviction that life has a purpose is rooted in every fibre of man; it is a property of the human substance.** (2 · ▲2 ▼0) — If This Is a Man (1947), cap. VII.
4. **Consider if this is a man / who works in the mud / who does not know peace / who fights for a scrap of bread / who dies because of a yes or a no.** (1 · ▲2 ▼1) — "Shema", the poem that opens If This Is a Man (1947).
5. **If understanding is impossible, knowing is necessary.** (1 · ▲1 ▼0) — Afterword to If This Is a Man (1976).
6. **Woe to those who dream: the moment of consciousness that comes with waking is the sharpest suffering.** (1 · ▲1 ▼0) — If This Is a Man (1947), cap. IV.
7. **Every age has its own fascism.** (1 · ▲1 ▼0) — L'asimmetria e la vita (2002).
8. **Everyone is somebody's Jew.** (1 · ▲1 ▼0) — If Not Now, When? (1982).
9. **Nostalgia is a fragile and gentle suffering, essentially different, more intimate, more human than other pains.** (1 · ▲1 ▼0) — The Truce (1963).
10. **Among the things I had learned in Auschwitz, one of the most important was that you must always avoid being "a nobody".** (1 · ▲1 ▼0) — The Truce (1963).
11. **Loving your work (which unfortunately is the privilege of few) is the best concrete approximation to happiness on earth.** (1 · ▲1 ▼0) — The Wrench (1978).
12. **Meditate that this came about: / I commend these words to you. / Carve them in your hearts.** (0 · ▲1 ▼1) — "Shema", the poem that opens If This Is a Man (1947).
13. **Few are the men who know how to go to their death with dignity, and often they are not the ones you would expect.** (0 · ▲1 ▼1) — If This Is a Man (1947), cap. I.
14. **It happened, therefore it can happen again: this is the core of what we have to say.** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — The Drowned and the Saved (1986), Conclusion.
15. **To destroy a man is difficult, almost as difficult as to create one: it has not been easy, nor quick, but you Germans have succeeded.** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — If This Is a Man (1947), cap. XVI.
16. **Trouble does not come at a gallop, like the Huns, but quietly, stealthily, like epidemics.** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — The Periodic Table (1975), "Argento".
17. **Distilling is beautiful. First, because it is a slow, philosophical and silent occupation, that keeps you busy but lets you think of other things.** (-1 · ▲0 ▼1) — The Periodic Table (1975), "Potassio".

How is this ranking ordered? By people's votes: each ▲ adds a point and each ▼ takes one away. Anyone can vote and add what is missing.