When one is already on the edge of the grave, why not resist? Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn More Quotes by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn More Quotes From Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn The one good thing about repeating your mistakes is that you know when to cringe Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn good-things knows mistake Woe to that nation whose literature is disturbed by the intervention of power. Because that is not just a violation against "freedom of print," it is the closing down of the heart of the nation, a slashing to pieces of its memory. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn freedom heart memories Each person has his special moment of life when he unfolded himself to the fullest, felt to the deepest, and expressed himself to the utmost, to himself and to others. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn moments special life It is within the power of writers and artists to do much more: to defeat the lie! Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn defeat artist lying Religion itself cannot but be dynamic which is why "return" is an incorrect term. A return to the forms of religion which perhaps existed a couple of centuries ago is absolutely impossible. On the contrary, in order to combat modern materialistic mores, as religion must, to fight nihilism and egotism, religion must also develop, must be flexible in its forms, and it must have a correlation with the cultural forms of the epoch. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn fighting nihilism order Own only what you can always carry with you: know languages, know countries, know people. Let your memory be your travel bag. Use your memory! Use your memory! It is those bitter seeds alone which might sprout and grow someday. Look around you - there are people around you. Maybe you will remember one of them all your life and later eat your heart out because you didn't make use of the opportunity to ask him questions. And the less you talk, the more you'll hear. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn heart memories country Yes, you live with your feet in the mud and there's no time to be thinking about how you got in or how you're going to get out. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn mud feet thinking Truth seldom is pleasant; it is almost invariably bitter. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn pleasant bitter To stand up for truth is nothing. For truth, you must sit in jail. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn truth-is jail Violence does not and cannot flourish by itself; it is inevitably intertwined with lying. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn violence doe lying Hastiness and superficiality are the psychic diseases of the 20th century, and more than anywhere else this disease is reflected in the press. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn psychics disease health At what point, then, should one resist? When one's belt is taken away? When one is ordered to face into a corner? When one crosses the threshold of one's home? An arrest consists of a series of incidental irrelevancies, of a multitude of things that do not matter, and there seems no point in arguing about one of them individually...and yet all these incidental irrelevancies taken together implacably constitute the arrest. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn taken together home Work was like a stick. It had two ends. When you worked for the knowing you gave them quality; when you worked for a fool you simply gave him eyewash. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn quality knowing two ... any country that is not careful can be seized. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn careful country All classifications in this world lack sharp boundaries, and all transitions are gradual. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn transition boundaries world Truth must be told-and things must change! If words are not about real things and do not cause things to happen, what is the good of them? Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn causes real truth The salvation of mankind lies only in making everything the concern of all. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn responsibility humanity lying Literature cannot develop between the categories "permitted"—"not permitted"—"this you can and that you can't." Literature that is not the air of its contemporary society, that dares not warn in time against threatening moral and social dangers, such literature does not deserve the name of literature; it is only a facade. Such literature loses the confidence of its own people, and its published works are used as waste paper instead of being read. -Letter to the Fourth National Congress of Soviet Writers Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn air names time Our Twentieth Century has proved to be more cruel than preceding centuries, and the first fifty years have not erased all its horrors. Our world is rent asunder by those same old cave-age emotions of greed, envy, lack of control, mutual hostility which have picked up in passing respectable pseudonyms like class struggle, radical conflict, struggle of the masses, trade-union disputes. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn our-world struggle class If a person can build a fence around himself, he is bound to do it. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn fence persons ifs
