An engineer cannot participate in irrationality. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn More Quotes by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn More Quotes From Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn A great number of publications and movies on the history of the 20th century - albeit of uneven quality - are evidence of a growing demand. Quite recently, the state-owned TV channel 'Russia' aired a series based on Varlam Shalamov's works, showing the terrible, cruel truth about Stalin's camps. It was not watered down. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn evidence quality terrible If you ever get twenty-five years for nothing, if you find yourself wearing four number patches on your clothes, holding your hands permanently behind your back, submitting to searches morning and evening, working until you are utterly exhausted, dragged into the cooler whenever someone denounces you, trodden deeper and deeper into the ground-from the hole you're in, the fine words of the great humanists will sound like the chatter of the well-fed and free. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn clothes morning years Every act of perception has an emotional coloring. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn emotional perception Submissiveness to fate, the total abdication of your own will in the shaping of your life, the recognition that it was impossible to guess the best and the worst ahead of time but that it was easy to take a step you would reproach yourself for-all this freed the prisoner from any bondage, made him calmer, and even ennobled him. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn abdication fate steps Work is what horses die of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn horse dies If you wanted to put the world to rights, who should you begin with: yourself or others? Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn should rights world When one is already on the edge of the grave, why not resist? Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn why-not graves prison It makes me happier, more secure, to think that I do not have to plan and manage everything for myself, that I am only a sword made sharp to smite the unclean forces, an enchanted sword to cleave and disperse them. Grant, O Lord, that I may not break as I strike! Let me not fall from Thy hand! Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn hands fall thinking And keep as few things as possible, so that you don't have to fear for them. Give them up without a struggle-because otherwise the humiliation will poison your heart. They will take them away from you in a fight, and trying to hold onto your property will only leave you with a bloodied mouth ... But by owning things and trembling about their fate aren't you forfeiting the rare opportunity of observing and understanding? Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn fighting struggle heart A decline in courage may be the most striking feature that an outside observer notices in the West today. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn west may today I dare hope that all the peoples who have lived through communism will understand that communism is to blame for the bitter pages of their history. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn bitter blame pages Evil people always support each other; that is their chief strength. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn chiefs evil-people support ... scientists have made no clear effort to become an important, independently active force of mankind. Whole congresses at a time, they back away from the suffering of others; it is more comfortable to stay within the bounds of science. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn suffering-of-others effort science Lord, give me the strength to accomplish what You've given me to do and the faith to trust You that what I haven't been able to accomplish You've already assigned to someone else. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn give-me-strength able giving Whenever the tissue of life is woven of legalistic relationships, this creates an atmosphere of spiritual mediocrity that paralyzes a person's noblest impulses. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn atmosphere woven spiritual Who will dare say he has defined art? Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn defined dare art If we could all take a sober look at our history, then we would no longer see this nostalgic attitude to the Soviet past that predominates among the less affected part of our society. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn attitude looks past 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". Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn vain parenting children I have spent all my life under a Communist regime, and I will tell you that a society without any objective legal scale is a terrible one indeed. But a society with no other scale but the legal one is not quite worthy of man either. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn law men life Even the most rational approach to ethics is defenseless if there isn't the will to do what is right. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn moral-ethics ethics-and-morals morality
