Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Quotes

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Ivanov came to quite the same conclusion, though life supplied him with quite different material to think about. He puts it like this: many lives have a mystical sense, but not everyone reads it right; more often than not it is given to us in cryptic form, and when we fail to decipher it we despair because our lives seem meaningless… the secret of a great life is often a man's success in deciphering the mysterious symbols vouchsafed to him, understanding them, and so learning to walk in the true path.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
The Iron Curtain did not reach the ground and under it flowed liquid manure from the West.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
What is an optimist? The man who says, "It's worse everywhere else. We're better off than the rest of the world. We've been lucky." He is happy with things as they are and he doesn't torment himself. What is a pessimist? The man who says, "Things are fine everywhere but here. Everyone else is better off than we are. We're the only ones who've had a bad break." He torments himself continually.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Archeologists have not discovered stages of human existence so early that they were without art. Right back in the early morning twilights of mankind we received it from Hands which we were too slow to discern. And we were too slow to ask: FOR WHAT PURPOSE have we been given this gift? What are we to do with it?
And they were mistaken, and will always be mistaken, who prophesy that art will disintegrate, that it will outlive its forms and die. It is we who shall die — art will remain. And shall we comprehend, even on the day of our destruction, all its facets and all its possibilities?

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
The Universe has as many different centers as there are living beings in it. Each of us is the center of the Universe, and that Universe is shattered when they hiss at you, "You are under arrest."

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
A man is happy so long as he chooses to be happy and nothing can stop him.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Blow the dust off the clock. Your watches are behind the times. Throw open the heavy curtains which are so dear to you — you do not even suspect that the day has already dawned outside.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
If decade after decade the truth cannot be told, each person's mind begins to roam irretrievably. One's fellow countrymen become harder to understand than Martians.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Work was like a stick. It had two ends. When you worked for the knowing you gave them quality; when you worked for a fool you simply gave him eye-wash.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of their own heart?

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Writers and artists can achieve more: they can CONQUER FALSEHOOD! In the struggle with falsehood art always did win and it always does win! Openly, irrefutably for everyone! Falsehood can hold out against much in this world, but not against art.
And no sooner will falsehood be dispersed than the nakedness of violence will be revealed in all its ugliness — and violence, decrepit, will fall.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
A work of art bears within itself its own verification: conceptions which are devised or stretched do not stand being portrayed in images, they all come crashing down, appear sickly and pale, convince no one. But those works of art which have scooped up the truth and presented it to us as a living force — they take hold of us, compel us, and nobody ever, not even in ages to come, will appear to refute them.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
The most intense patriotism always flourishes in the rear.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Macbeth's self-justifications were feeble – and his conscience devoured him. Yes, even Iago was a little lamb too. The imagination and the spiritual strength of Shakespeare's evildoers stopped short at a dozen corpses. Because they had no ideology.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Violence does not and cannot exist by itself; it is invariably intertwined with the lie.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
A genius doesn't adjust his treatment of a theme to a tyrant's taste

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
A state of war only serves as an excuse for domestic tyranny.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
But the fight for our planet, physical and spiritual, a fight of cosmic proportions, is not a vague matter of the future; it has already started. The forces of Evil have begun their decisive offensive, you can feel their pressure, and yet your screens and publications ae full of prescribed smiles and raised glasses. What is the joy about?

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Let us not violate the RIGHT of the artist to express exclusively his own experiences and introspections, disregarding everything that happens in the world beyond. Let us not DEMAND of the artist, but — reproach, beg, urge and entice him — that we may be allowed to do. After all, only in part does he himself develop his talent; the greater part of it is blown into him at birth as a finished product, and the gift of talent imposes responsibility on his free will. Let us assume that the artist does not OWE anybody anything: nevertheless, it is painful to see how, by retiring into his self-made worlds or the spaces of his subjective whims, he CAN surrender the real world into the hands of men who are mercenary, if not worthless, if not insane.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Harvard's motto is "Veritas." Many of you have already found out and others will find out in the course of their lives that truth eludes us if we do not concentrate with total attention on its pursuit. And even while it eludes us, the illusion still lingers of knowing it and leads to many misunderstandings. Also, truth is seldom pleasant; it is almost invariably bitter. There is some bitterness in my speech today, too. But I want to stress that it comes not from an adversary but from a friend.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
I was in a state of witless shock, as though flames had suddenly enwrapped and paralyzed me so that for a moment I had no mind, no memory.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
The Western world has lost its civil courage, both as a whole and separately, in each country, each government, each political party, and of course in the United Nations.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Thus it is that no cruelty whatsoever passes by without impact. Thus it is that we always pay dearly for chasing after what is cheap.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
I can say without affectation that I belong to the Russian convict world no less … than I do to Russian literature. I got my education there, and it will last forever.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
A man with two trades to his credit can easily learn another ten.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
One should never direct people towards happiness, because happiness too is an idol of the market-place. One should direct them towards mutual affection. A beast gnawing at its prey can be happy too, but only human beings can feel affection for each other.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
A man should build a house with his own hands before before he calls himself an engineer.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Justice is conscience, not a personal conscience but the conscience of the whole of humanity. Those who clearly recognize the voice of their own conscience usually recognize also the voice of justice.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Without any censorship, in the West fashionable trends of thought and ideas are carefully separated from those which are not fashionable; nothing is forbidden, but what is not fashionable will hardly ever find its way into periodicals or books or be heard in colleges. Legally your researchers are free, but they are conditioned by the fashion of the day. There is no open violence such as in the East; however, a selection dictated by fashion and the need to match mass standards frequently prevent independent-minded people from giving their contribution to public life. There is a dangerous tendency to form a herd, shutting off successful development.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn