An engineer cannot participate in irrationality. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn More Quotes by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn More Quotes From Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Freedom! To fill people's mailboxes, eyes, ears and brains with commercial rubbish against their will, television programs that are impossible to watch with a sense of coherence. Freedom! To force information on people, taking no account of their right not to accept it or their right of peace of mind. Freedom! To spit in the eyes and souls of passersby with advertisements. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn mind-freedom eye people It was only when I lay there on the rotting prison straw that I sensed within myself the first stirrings of good. Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not between states nor between social classes nor between political parties, but right through every human heart, through all human hearts. And that is why I turn back to the years of my imprisonment and say, sometimes to the astonishment of those about me, bless you, prison, for having been a part of my life. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn party heart years What would things been like [in Russia] if during periods of mass arrests people had not simply sat there, paling with terror at every bang on the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but understood they had nothing to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people? Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn russia doors people On the way from the Renaissance to our days we have enriched our experience, but we have lost the concept of a Supreme Complete Entity which used to restrain our passions and our irresponsibility. We have placed too much hope in political and social reforms, only to find out that we were being deprived of our most precious possession: our spiritual life. In the East, it is destroyed by the dealings and machinations of the ruling party. In the West, commercial interests tend to suffocate it. This is the real crisis. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn atheist real spiritual Communist propaganda would sometimes include statements such as "we include almost all the commandments of the Gospel in our ideology". The difference is that the Gospel asks all this to be achieved through love, through self-limitation, but socialism only uses coercion. This is one point. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn differences use self A state of war only serves as an excuse for domestic tyranny. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn historical war peace If I were called upon to identify briefly the principal trait of the entire 20th century... I would be unable to find anything more precise and pithy than to repeat once again: Men have forgotten God. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn religious christian men Sometimes I feel quite distinctly that what is inside me is not all of me. There is something else, sublime, quite indestructible, some tiny fragment of the Universal spirit.Don't you feel that? Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn tiny sublime spirit Human nature is full of riddles; . . . one of those riddles is: how is it that people who have been crushed by the sheer weight of slavery and cast to the bottom of the pit can nevertheless find strength in themselves to rise up and free themselves first in spirit and then in body while those who soar unhampered over the peaks of freedom suddenly lose the taste of freedom, lose the will to defend it, and, hopelessly confused and lost, almost begin to crave slavery?' Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn pits confused people We are so attached to the earth, and yet we are incapable of holding onto it. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn incapable holding-on earth It's true that private enterprise is extremely flexible, But its only good within very narrow limits. If private enterprise isn't held in an iron grip it gives birth to people who are no better than beasts, those stock-exchange people with greedy appetites beyond restraint. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn iron giving people Society must cease to look upon 'progress' as something desirable. 'Eternal Progress' is a nonsensical myth. What must be implemented is not a 'steadily expanding economy', but a zero growth economy, a stable economy. Economic growth is not only unnecessary but ruinous. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn progress growth zero Here again we witness the single outcome of a worldwide process, with East and West yielding the same results, and once again for the same reason: Men have forgotten God. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn east evil men Freedom or prison--what's the difference? A man must develop unwavering will power subject only to his reason. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn differences prison men During my time in the camps, I had got to know the enemies of the human race quite well: they respect the big fist and nothing else; the harder you slug them, the safer you will be. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn slugs race enemy The solemn pledge to abstain from telling the truth was called socialist realism. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn realism socialist telling-the-truth It is time in the West to defend not so much human rights as human obligations. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn ignorance motivational inspirational One cannot declare that only his faith is correct and all other faiths are not. God is endlessly multi-dimensional so every religion that exists on earth represents some face, some side of God. One must not have any negative attitude to any religion but nonetheless the depth of understanding God and the depth of applying God's commandments is different in different religions. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn understanding-god depth attitude 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. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn names mean art Only the first swath cut by the scythe is difficult. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn scythes cutting firsts
