Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn quotes - page 3

You can resolve to live your life with integrity. Let your credo be this: Let the lie come into the world, let it even triumph. But not through me. (Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn)
Bless you prison, bless you for being in my life. For there, lying upon the rotting prison straw, I came to realize that the object of life is not prosperity as we are made to believe, but the maturity of the human soul. View quote
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
If we live in a state of constant fear, can we remain human? View quote
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Violence can only be concealed by a lie, and the lie can only be maintained by violence. View quote
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
We didn't love freedom enough. View quote
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Human rights' are a fine thing, but how can we make ourselves sure that our rights do not expand at the expense of the rights of others. A society with unlimited rights is incapable of standing to adversity. If we do not wish to be ruled by a coercive authority, then each of us must rein himself in...A stable society is achieved not by balancing opposing forces but by conscious self-limitation: by the principle that we are always duty-bound to defer to the sense of moral justice. View quote
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
To stand up for truth is nothing. For truth, you must sit in jail. View quote
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
What is the most precious thing in the world? I see now that it is the knowledge that you have no part in injustice. Injustice is stronger than you, it always was and always will be, but let it not be done through you. View quote
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
It is time in the West to defend not so much human rights as human obligations. View quote
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
The next war... may well bury Western civilization forever. View quote
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Only those who decline to scramble up the career ladder are interesting as human beings. Nothing is more boring than a man with a career. (Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn)
The meaning of earthly existence lies not, as we have grown used to thinking, in prospering, but in the development of the soul... View quote
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Was it Gorky who had said, "If your children are no better than you are, you have fathered them in vain, indeed you have lived in vain". View quote
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Not everything has a name. Some things lead us into a realm beyond words...By means of art were are sometimes sent - dimly, briefly - revelations unattainable by reason. View quote
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Every man always has handy a dozen glib little reasons why he is right not to sacrifice himself. View quote
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Man has set for himself the goal of conquering the world but in the processes loses his soul. View quote
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Oh, how hard it is to part with power! This one has to understand. View quote
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Talent is always conscious of its own abundance, and does not object to sharing. View quote
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
We have arrived at an intellectual chaos. View quote
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Even if we are spared destruction by war, our lives will have to change if we want to save life from self-destruction. View quote
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
There is no point asserting and reasserting what the heart cannot believe. (Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn)
Our government declared that it is conducting some kind of great reforms. In reality, no real reforms were begun and no one at any point has declared a coherent programme. View quote
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
When truth is discovered by someone else, it loses something of its attractiveness. View quote
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
It is unthinkable in the twentieth century to fail to distinguish between what constitutes an abominable atrocity that must be prosecuted and what constitutes that "past" which "ought not to be stirred up. View quote
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
We are all human, and our senses are quicker to prompt us than our reason. Every man gives off a scent, and that scent tells you how to act before your head does. View quote
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn