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Who really said it

The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference

Not original to Elie Wiesel — the formulation is Wilhelm Stekel’s (1921) Wilhelm Stekel 1868–1940 · Austrian physician & psychoanalyst
Disputed In copyright

Elie Wiesel really did say this exact line — in a 1986 U.S. News & World Report interview (“The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference…”) — so it is a genuine Wiesel quotation. But he did not coin it: Quote Investigator traces the same formulation to the Austrian psychoanalyst Wilhelm Stekel, who wrote “The opposite of love is not hate, but indifference” in a book published in 1921 — seven years before Wiesel was even born. The misattribution is one of origin, not fabrication.

Last verified 16 Jul 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

For presentations

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Disputed — copy with the correction

“The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference” The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference. —said by Elie Wiesel (1986), but the formulation is Wilhelm Stekel's, published in 1921

Can you use it?

Still under copyright (rights held by Elie Wiesel’s estate (as published in U.S. News & World Report, 1986)). A short, credited quote is generally fine for talks, teaching, and internal decks; for commercial, published, or large-scale reuse, get permission.

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In context

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Provenance

Where the line actually comes from

Popularly credited to
Elie Wiesel
Earliest close match
The Beloved Ego: Foundations of the New Study of the Psyche
Originating author
Wilhelm Stekel (1921)
Translation
Rosalie Gabler, 1921

Indifference, to me, is the epitome of evil. The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it’s indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it’s indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it’s indifference.

Elie Wiesel, interview in U.S. News & World Report, 1986. Wiesel’s wording is genuine — but the near-identical formulation had already appeared in Wilhelm Stekel’s 1921 The Beloved Ego: “The opposite of love is not hate, but indifference; the opposite of feeling can only be the absence of feeling.”

Quote Investigator: the 1921 Stekel origin and full chronology

The paper trail

  • Quote Investigator finds the earliest close match in Wilhelm Stekel’s The Beloved Ego (translated by Rosalie Gabler, 1921): “The opposite of love is not hate, but indifference.”
  • Wiesel did use the exact line — in a 1986 U.S. News & World Report interview — but that was 65 years after Stekel and is not originary.
  • Goodreads credits the line to Stekel and tags it “misattributed-elie-wiesel.”
  • Cousin phrasings run through John le Carré (1968, “apathy”) and Rollo May (1969), per QI.
In copyright

The exact wording as quoted — “it’s indifference” — is Elie Wiesel’s 1986 phrasing, which is in copyright. The near-identical originating formulation (“but indifference”) appeared in Rosalie Gabler’s 1921 translation of Stekel, published before 1931 and therefore itself in the public domain; but the specific string people quote traces to Wiesel’s modern statement, so the conservative rights status is in-copyright.

Fact-check

How Wiesel got the credit

This is an unusual case: the person it’s credited to really did say it. What’s wrong is the belief that he originated it.

Not coined by Elie Wiesel misattributed

Wiesel used the exact line in a 1986 U.S. News & World Report interview, but the formulation predates him by 65 years: Wilhelm Stekel published it in his 1921 book The Beloved Ego, per Quote Investigator. Wiesel was born in 1928 — after the line was already in print.

The four-clause form is authentic

It’s often assumed the “life” clause — “the opposite of life is not death, it’s indifference” — is a later viral add-on, but it isn’t: Wiesel’s documented 1986 statement already ran to four parallel clauses (love, art, faith, life), opening with “Indifference, to me, is the epitome of evil,” per Quote Investigator. The widely shared four-part version (see Goodreads) is the real 1986 wording, not an over-expansion.

Wiesel genuinely said it in 1986 — but the thought was Wilhelm Stekel’s in 1921, with cousin phrasings from John le Carré (1968) and Rollo May (1969), all charted by Quote Investigator.

Context

Why it stuck to Wiesel

The line resonates under Elie Wiesel’s name for a reason: as a survivor of Auschwitz and Buchenwald and a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Wiesel spent his life warning that indifference — not active hatred alone — is what lets atrocity happen. When he repeated the aphorism in 1986, it landed with the moral authority of lived witness, and it fused to him.

But an idea can be spoken powerfully without being invented by the speaker. The near-identical sentence had already been printed in 1921 by the psychoanalyst Wilhelm Stekel, and related versions circulated for decades before Wiesel ever used it.

Wiesel gave the line its moral weight — but not its words.

Explore

Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

Love

Go further

Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

Quote Investigator: full chronologyquoteinvestigator.com

The authoritative trace — earliest close match (Stekel, 1921), Wiesel’s 1986 use, and the le Carré/May variants.
Elie Wieselen.wikiquote.org

Wikiquote’s collection of Wiesel quotations for cross-checking what he actually said.
Wilhelm Stekelen.wikipedia.org

Background on the Austrian psychoanalyst who published the 1921 formulation.
Quote credited to Stekelgoodreads.com

Goodreads entry crediting the line to Stekel and tagging it “misattributed-elie-wiesel.”
Quote credited to Wieselgoodreads.com

The widely shared Wiesel attribution, with the expanded four-clause form and no source cited.

The real source

Who actually wrote it

Wilhelm Stekel

1868–1940 · Austrian physician & psychoanalyst

Wilhelm Stekel was an Austrian physician and one of Sigmund Freud’s earliest followers, later an independent psychoanalyst known for his work on the psychology of love, sexuality, and the emotions. In his 1921 book The Beloved Ego (and its German counterpart the same year) he set down the antithesis that would later travel the world under other names: that the true opposite of love is not hatred but indifference — the absence of feeling.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Primary sources

Earliest documented in Wilhelm Stekel, The Beloved Ego: Foundations of the New Study of the Psyche, trans. Rosalie Gabler (1921); popular wording from Elie Wiesel, interview in U.S. News & World Report (1986). Chronology per Quote Investigator, “The Opposite of Love Is Not Hate, But Indifference” (May 21, 2019).

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Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference’?” Last verified 16 Jul 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/the-opposite-of-love-is-not-hate-its-indifference

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