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Primo Levi

Primo Levi

Primo Michele Levi (31 July 1919-11 April 1987) was a Jewish-Italian chemist, Holocaust survivor and author of memoirs, short stories, poems, essays and novels

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Some Poems

For me chemistry represented an indefinite cloud of future potentialities which enveloped my life to come in black volutes torn by fiery flashes, like those which had hidden Mount Sinai. Like Moses, from that cloud I expected my law, the principle of order in me, around me, and in the world. I would watch the buds swell in spring, the mica glint in the granite, my own hands, and I would say to myself: I will understand this, too, I will understand everything.
The future of humanity is uncertain, even in the most prosperous countries, and the quality of life deteriorates; and yet I believe that what is being discovered about the infinitely large and infinitely small is sufficient to absolve this end of the century and millennium. What a very few are acquiring in knowledge of the physical world will perhaps cause this period not to be judged as a pure return of barbarism.
I live in my house as I live inside my skin: I know more beautiful, more ample, more sturdy and more picturesque skins: but it would seem to me unnatural to exchange them for mine.
A country is considered the more civilized the more the wisdom and efficiency of its laws hinder a weak man from becoming too weak or a powerful one too powerful.
Human memory is a marvelous but fallacious instrument. The memories which lie within us are not carved in stone; not only do they tend to become erased as the years go by, but often they change, or even increase by incorporating extraneous features.
Anyone who has obeyed nature by transmitting a piece of gossip experiences the explosive relief that accompanies the satisfying of a primary need.
In order for the wheel to turn, for life to be lived, impurities are needed, and the impurities of impurities in the soil, too, as is known, if it is to be fertile. Dissension, diversity, the grain of salt and mustard are needed: Fascism does not want them, forbids them, and that's why you're not a Fascist; it wants everybody to be the same, and you are not. But immaculate virtue does not exist either, or if it exists it is detestable.
The bond between a man and his profession is similar to that which ties him to his country; it is just as complex, often ambivalent, and in general it is understood completely only when it is broken: by exile or emigration in the case of one's country, by retirement in the case of a trade or profession.
The butterfly's attractiveness derives not only from colors and symmetry: deeper motives contribute to it. We would not think them so beautiful if they did not fly, or if they flew straight and briskly like bees, or if they stung, or above all if they did not enact the perturbing mystery of metamorphosis: the latter assumes in our eyes the value of a badly decoded message, a symbol, a sign.
After the planet becomes theirs, many millions of years will have to pass before a beetle particularly loved by God, at the end of its calculations will find written on a sheet of paper in letters of fire that energy is equal to the mass multiplied by the square of the velocity of light. The new kings of the world will live tranquilly for a long time, confining themselves to devouring each other and being parasites among each other on a cottage industry scale.
For me chemistry represented an indefinite cloud of future potentialities which enveloped my life to come in black volutes torn by fiery flashes, like those which had hidden Mount Sinai. Like Moses, from that cloud I expected my law, the principle of order in me, around me, and in the world. I would watch the buds swell in spring, the mica glint in the granite, my own hands, and I would say to myself: I will understand this, too, I will understand everything.
The future of humanity is uncertain, even in the most prosperous countries, and the quality of life deteriorates; and yet I believe that what is being discovered about the infinitely large and infinitely small is sufficient to absolve this end of the century and millennium. What a very few are acquiring in knowledge of the physical world will perhaps cause this period not to be judged as a pure return of barbarism.
I live in my house as I live inside my skin: I know more beautiful, more ample, more sturdy and more picturesque skins: but it would seem to me unnatural to exchange them for mine.
A country is considered the more civilized the more the wisdom and efficiency of its laws hinder a weak man from becoming too weak or a powerful one too powerful.
Primo Levi: Chemist, Writer, Auschwitz Survivor
Primo Levi | Historical Figures of the Holocaust | Yad Vashem
Primo Levi - Periodic Table of Videos
Primo Levi ...
Primo Levi, Back to Auschwitz (Part 1 of 2)
PRIMO LEVI - Se questo è un uomo (vita e opere)
Poetry in Holocaust Education Part 2/4: "Shema" by Primo Levi
The testimony of Primo Levi
Chi era Primo Levi - [Appunti Video]
Primo Levi raconte Auschwitz en 1972 - #CulturePrime
Primo Levi (1919-1987), l’homme en soi : Une vie, une œuvre (2019 / France Culture)
Primo Levi As Moral Witness
Who Was Primo Levi? The Jews of Italy pt. X
Primo Levi: vita e opere
Primo Levi || Vita e opere
Plot summary, “Survival In Auschwitz” by Primo Levi in 6 Minutes - Book Review
PRIMO LEVI: AUSCHWITZ AND AFTER
☑️ PRIMO LEVI riassunto completo vita e opere + SE QUESTO è UN UOMO (riassunto per SUPERIORI)
Elie Wiesel Memorial Lecture by Sharon Portnoff on "Primo Levi: Testimony of an Auschwitz Survivor"
É isto um homem? (Primo Levi) | Tatiana Feltrin
Al Filreis talks about Primo Levi's The Periodic Table at KWH
Trent’anni dopo Primo Levi e le sue storie - Speciale SkyArte
Ann Goldstein, David Remnick, John Turturro and Robert Weil: A Celebration of Primo Levi
Primo Levi, Back to Auschwitz (1982) - Part 1 of 2
✅ PRIMO LEVI riassunto semplice vita e Opere + Se questo è un uomo (RIASSUNTO X MEDIE)
Affection and Survival: Primo Levi at 100
Primo Levi, Back to Auschwitz (Part 2 of 2)
Primo Levi, il ricordo di Edith Bruck - Porta a porta 27/01/2021
Intervista a Primo Levi - Il veleno di Auschwitz
PRIMO LEVI
PRIMO LEVI : riflessioni
Primo Levi Panel: 2016 National Book Festival
Paul Verhaeghen Reads Survival in Auschwitz by Primo Levi
Storia e biografia di Primo Levi
I grandi romanzi - Se questo è un uomo di Primo Levi
Primo Levi | Was ist ein Mensch? | Rezension
Primo Levi - il veleno di Auschwitz (03/02/1985)
Quem foi Primo Levi? | Christian Assunção
Leitura de Vassoler: É isto um homem? | Primo Levi
Marco Belpoliti | I sommersi e i salvati di Primo Levi | festivalfilosofia 2015
La morte di Primo Levi: l'enigma del suicidio
Primo Levi - Intervista Rai (anni '80)
Os afogados e os sobreviventes, de Primo Levi - Resenha
Dehumanization: Auschwitz Survivor Primo Levi Speaks on The Holocaust
Lezione 32 - Primo Levi
Primo Levi Retorno a Auschwitz
É ISTO UM HOMEM ? | Primo Levi
If This Is a Man by Primo levi complete audiobook. (HD)
Se questo è un chimico - Sorgente di vita 08/07/2019
Se questo è un uomo – Primo Levi

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