A Quote by Elie Wiesel

My interpretation is different. God asks Cain, "Where is your brother Abel?" [Genesis 4:9] And Cain answers "Lo yadati, "I don't know" or "I didn't know." Then comes a period, followed by "Am I my brother's keeper?"

Elie Wiesel

Quote Topics

Abel Am Answers Asks Brother Cain Different Followed Genesis God Interpretation Keeper Know My Brother Period Then Your Your Brother

Quote Author

Elie Wiesel
American - Writer
September 30, 1928 - July 2, 2016

What always strikes me in the story of Cain and Abel is how often the word "brother" is used. Cain killed his "brother." God says it was "the blood of your brother." The killing was done to another human being, a child of God like you, breaking that sacred bond of common humanity.

Allan Boesak

On the whole, we're a murderous race. According to Genesis, it took as few as four people to make the planet too crowded to stand, and the first murder was a fratricide. Genesis says that in a fit of jealous rage, the very first child born to mortal parents, Cain, snapped and popped the first metaphorical cap in another human being. The attack was a bloody, brutal, violent, reprehensible killing. Cain's brother Abel probably never saw it coming. As I opened the door to my apartment, I was filled with a sense of empathic sympathy and intuitive understanding. For freaking Cain.

Jim Butcher

Abel's sacrifice was accepted by God because it was made according to God's instructions. Cain, however, tried to approach God in his own way and was rejected by God (Genesis 4:3-5). From that point on, Cain became a symbol of those who try to approach God on their own terms.

Robert Jeffress

Take the story of Cain and Abel. Why were we given that story? Scientifically, you may have an explanation for it, but I'm not approaching it from the scientific point of view. I'm saying: Why do we need that? It's a sordid story, a depressing story, a dark story. Why should I believe that I'm a descendant of either Cain or Abel? Thank God there is a third son! [Genesis 4:25]

Elie Wiesel

There is a growing threat to the environment, to the vegetation, animals, water and air. Sacred Scripture hands us the image of Cain who rejects his responsibility: 'Am I my brother's keeper?' The Bible shows the human person as his brother's keeper and the guardian of creation which has been entrusted to him.

Pope John Paul II

Cain's an animal, man. Cain's a competitor. I want to spar with Cain because I know if I'm able to hang with him here in the gym, once I get out there in the cage and fight, I mean, I've already gone toe-to-toe with Cain Velasquez, you know?

Daniel Cormier

The idea of the split personality is as old as Genesis. For a start, Eve was manufactured from Adam's rib. Then there's Cain and Abel, twins at war. They were followed by Esau and Jacob, likewise divisible into hairy and smooth types.

Clive Sinclair

American life is builded ... upon that fundamental philosophy announced by the Savior nineteen centuries ago ... [It] can not survive with the defense of Cain, "Am I my brother's keeper?

Herbert Hoover

"Am I my brother's keeper?" There you have the whole Biblical understanding that you are your brother's keeper. You also have a whole other understanding in which you are not your brother's keeper. And I've heard some extremely bright people take this position.

Elie Wiesel

He saw a lawyer killing a viper on a dunghill hard by his own stable; And the Devil smiled, for it put him in mind of Cain and his brother Abel.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

I may be a descendant of Seth. I say to myself, What does [the story of Cain and Abel] teach me? So I go back to all the interpretations in the Talmud, which to me are a source of pleasure and joy. Then I say, maybe this story is not for then; maybe it's for now! It's possible for brothers to kill one another in civil wars. But most important, whoever kills, kills his brother. That's a moral conclusion that may not be there; but that must be my conclusion. Otherwise, why read it? Whoever kills, kills his brother.

Elie Wiesel

Literature more often tells the story of impulses we don't act on than of ones we do. I could joke about the Cain and Abel story with my brother without expecting him to be worried, though it's always possible he was more anxious than he let on.

Howard Jacobson

Cain slew Abel. On that much the Torah and the Bible and the Qur'an agree, although in the Qur'an these first sons of Adam and Eve are Qabeel and Habeel. Cain, which is to say Qabeel, wandered eastwards from Eden to the Land of Nod with a mark of some kind on him, a curse.

Terry Glavin

Although I may not be my brother's keeper, I am my brother's brother, and 'because I have been given much, I too must give.'

Jeffrey R. Holland

And I like the way Cain writes his women. Very strong. They're kind of lusty, they know what they want, they're full of conviction. Cain's women are sexual.