Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn quotes - page 4

Today when we say the West we are already referring to the West and to Russia. We could use the word "modernity" if we exclude Africa, and the Islamic world, and partially China. (Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn)
In our village, folks say God crumbles up the old moon into stars. View quote
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Religion always remains higher than everyday life. In order to make the elevation towards religion easier for people, religion must be able to alter its forms in relation to the consciousness of modern man. View quote
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
...it's only on a black day that you begin to have friends. View quote
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
It would have been difficult to design a path out of communism worse than the one that has been followed. View quote
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Of course God is endlessly multi-dimensional so every religion that exists on earth represents some face, some side of God. View quote
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
There are a lot of clear thinkers everywhere. View quote
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Work is what horses die of. View quote
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
First would be the literary side, then the spiritual and philosophical. The political side is required principally because of the necessity of the current Russian position. View quote
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Woe to that nation whose literature is disturbed by the intervention of power. Because that is not just a violation against "freedom of print", it is the closing down of the heart of the nation, a slashing to pieces of its memory. View quote
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
It's an universal law-- intolerance is the first sign of an inadequate education. An ill-educated person behaves with arrogant impatience, whereas truly profound education breeds humility. (Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn)
It is in the nature of the human being to seek afor his actions. View quote
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
A great disaster had befallen Russia: Men have forgotten God; that's why all this has happened. View quote
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
If you live in a graveyard, you can't weep for everyone. View quote
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. View quote
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. View quote
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Literature that is not the breath of contemporary society, that dares not transmit the pains and fears of that society, that does not warn in time against threatening moral and social dangers - such literature does not deserve the name of literature; it is only a façade. Such literature loses the confidence of its own people, and its published works are used as wastepaper instead of being read. View quote
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 are full of prescribed smiles and raised glasses. What is the joy about? View quote
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Should someone ask me whether I would indicate the West such as it is today as a model to my country, frankly I would have to answer negatively. No, I could not recommend your society in its present state as an ideal for the transformation of ours. View quote
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
From time immemorial man has been made in such a way that his vision of the world, so long as it has not been instilled under hypnosis, his motivations and scale of values, his actions and intentions are determined by his personal and group experience of life. View quote
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)
A man should build a house with his own hands before he calls himself an engineer. View quote
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
A man with two trades to his credit can easily learn another ten. View quote
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. View quote
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
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. View quote
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn