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 More Quotes by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn More Quotes From 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. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn maturity believe lying 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. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn stronger done world A work of art contains its verification in itself: artificial, strained concepts do not withstand the test of being turned into images; they fall to pieces, turn out to be sickly and pale, convince no one. Works which draw on truth and present it to us in live and concentrated form grip us, compellingly involve us, and no one ever, not even ages hence, will come forth to refute them. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn age art fall Morality is always higher than law and we cannot forget this ever. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn morality law forget The same old caveman feeling-greed, envy, violence, and mutual hate, which along the way assumed respectable pseudonyms like class struggle, racial struggle, mass struggle, labor-union struggle-are tearing our world to pieces. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn our-world hate struggle The battleline between good and evil runs through the heart of every man. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn heart running men When things are too clear, they are no longer interesting. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn clarity clear interesting 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 our attention totally on it's pursuit. But even while it eludes us, the illusion of knowing it still lingers and leads to many misunderstandings. Also, truth seldom is pleasant; it is almost invariably bitter. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn elude-us knowing attention I had grown up among engineers, and I could remember the engineers of the twenties very well indeed: their open, shining intellects, their free and gentle humor, their agility and breadth of thought, the ease with which they shifted from one engineering field to another, and, for that matter, from technology to social concerns and art. Then, too, they personified good manners and delicacy of taste; well-bred speech that flowed evenly and was free of uncultured words; one of them might play a musical instrument, another dabble in painting; and their faces always bore a spiritual imprint. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn technology spiritual art A great disaster had befallen Russia: Men have forgotten God; that's why all this has happened. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn russia forgotten men ... people don't know what they are striving for. They waste themselves in senseless thrashing around for the sake of a handful of goods and die without realizing their spiritual wealth. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn sake spiritual people 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 careers men interesting It is not because the truth is too difficult to see that we make mistakes... we make mistakes because the easiest and most comfortable course for us is to seek insight where it accords with our emotions - especially selfish ones. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn selfish emotion mistake Any man who has once acclaimed violence as his method must inexorably choose falsehood as his principle. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn war peace lying When you're cold, don't expect sympathy from someone who's warm. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn warm cold The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either - but right through every human heart - and through all human hearts. This line shifts. Inside us, it oscillates with the years. And even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn party humility heart This deliberately nurtured hatred then spreads to all that is alive, to life itself, to the world with its colors, sounds, and shapes, to the human body. The embittered art of the twentieth century is perishing as a result of this ugly hate, for art is fruitless without love. In the East art has collapsed because it has been knocked down and trampled upon, but in the West the fall has been voluntary, a decline into a contrived and pretentious quest where the artist, instead of attempting to reveal the divine plan, tries to put himself in the place of God. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn hate art fall When we feel that we are not sufficiently respected, we should ask ourselves whether we are living as we should. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn respect should feels How can you expect a man who's warm to understand one who's cold? Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn cold compassion men Our envy of others devours us most of all. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn gossip envy inspirational
