Of course, my views developed in the course of time. But I have always believed in what I did and never acted against my conscience. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn More Quotes by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn More Quotes From Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn In the camp, this meant committing my verse-many thousands of lines-to memory. To help me with this I improvised decimal counting beads and, in transit prisons, broke up matchsticks and used the fragments as tallies. As I approached the end of my sentences I grew more confident of my powers of memory, and began writing down and memorizing prose-dialogue at first, but then, bit by bit, whole densely written passages. My memory found room for them! It worked. But more and more of my time-in the end as much as one week every month-went into the regular repetition of all I had memorized. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn lines writing memories If so far we have been unable to see clearly or to reflect the eternal lineaments of truth, is it not because we too are still moving towards some end-because we are still alive? Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn alive life moving Why should I trust you? We haven't drunk from the same bowl of soup. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn drunk trust soup After all, man is a complicated being, why should he be explainable by logic? Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn logic complicated men A meek fellow ... is a real godsend in any gang. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn meek gang real Prayers are like those appeals of ours. Either they don't get through or they're returned with 'rejected' scrawled across 'em. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn appeals ems prayer The most intense patriotism always flourishes in the rear. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn intense ... a man can safely sacrifice a great deal as long as he clings to the essential. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn sacrifice men long Thus, literature, together with language, preserves and protects a nation's soul. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn soul literature together This is a grave danger: the stoppage of information between the parts of the planet. Contemporary science knows that such stoppage is the way of entropy, of universal destruction. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn information communication way We never know beforehand how new posts or new work will change us. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn new-work posts change 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 harder persons mind Literature becomes the living memory of a nation. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn nations literature memories We have to condemn publicly the very idea that some people have the right to repress others... When we neither punish nor reproach evildoers ... we are ripping the foundations of justice from beneath new generations. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn justice people ideas For a country to have a great writer is like having a second government. That is why no regime has ever loved great writers, only minor ones. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn government love country 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 dust blow time The intellectual is not defined by professional group and type of occupation. Nor are good upbringing and a good family enough in themselves to produce an intellectual. An intellectual is a person whose interest in and preoccupation with the spiritual side of life are insistent and constant and not forced by external circumstances, even flying in the face of them. An intellectual is a person whose thought is nonimitative. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn flying intellectual spiritual Boris Yeltsin's period was characterized by a no less irresponsible attitude to people's lives, but in other ways. In his haste to have private rather than state ownership as quickly as possible, Yeltsin started a mass, multi-billion-dollar fire sale of the national patrimony. Wanting to gain the support of regional leaders, Yeltsin called directly for separatism and passed laws that encouraged and empowered the collapse of the Russian state. This deprived Russia of its historical role for which it had worked so hard, and lowered its standing in the international community. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn support community attitude Cracks make caves collapse. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn trifles cracks caves The Universe has as many different centers as there are living beings in it. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn universe society different
