We’ve sourced some of the most interesting and thought-provoking Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Quotes. Each of the following quotes is overflowing with creativity, and knowledge.
Anyone who has proclaimed violence his method inexorably must choose lying as his principle.
There are a lot of clear thinkers everywhere.
Woe to that nation whose literature is cut short by the intrusion of force. This is not merely interference with freedom of the press but the sealing up of a nation’s heart, the excision of its memory.
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.
Justice is conscience, not a personal conscience but the conscience of the whole of humanity. Those who clearly recognize the voice of their own conscience usually recognize also the voice of justice.
Literature becomes the living memory of a nation.
You only have power over people so long as you don’t take everything away from them. But when you’ve robbed a man of everything, he’s no longer in your power – he’s free again.
Human beings yield in many situations, even important and spiritual and central ones, as long as it prolongs one’s well-being.
A man is happy so long as he chooses to be happy and nothing can stop him.
In our country the lie has become not just a moral category but a pillar of the State.
We have arrived at an intellectual chaos.
Everything you add to the truth subtracts from the truth.
How can you expect a man who’s warm to understand one who’s cold?
Today when we say the West we are already referring to the West and to Russia. We could use the word ‘modernity’ if we exclude Africa, and the Islamic world, and partially China.
It is the artist who realizes that there is a supreme force above him and works gladly away as a small apprentice under God’s heaven.
Everything you add to the truth subtracts from the truth.
Our government declared that it is conducting some kind of great reforms. In reality, no real reforms were begun and no one at any point has declared a coherent programme.
Man has set for himself the goal of conquering the world but in the processes loses his soul.
Not everything has a name. Some things lead us into a realm beyond words.
Today when we say the West we are already referring to the West and to Russia. We could use the word ‘modernity’ if we exclude Africa, and the Islamic world, and partially China.
Own only what you can always carry with you: know languages, know countries, know people. Let your memory be your travel bag.
When truth is discovered by someone else, it loses something of its attractiveness.
A state of war only serves as an excuse for domestic tyranny.
Not everything has a name. Some things lead us into a realm beyond words.
For us in Russia communism is a dead dog. For many people in the West, it is still a living lion.
Literature becomes the living memory of a nation.
The sole substitute for an experience which we have not ourselves lived through is art and literature.
When truth is discovered by someone else, it loses something of its attractiveness.
Woe to that nation whose literature is cut short by the intrusion of force. This is not merely interference with freedom of the press but the sealing up of a nation’s heart, the excision of its memory.
Talent is always conscious of its own abundance, and does not object to sharing.
How can you expect a man who’s warm to understand one who’s cold?
The salvation of mankind lies only in making everything the concern of all.
Violence can only be concealed by a lie, and the lie can only be maintained by violence.
Any man who has once proclaimed violence as his method is inevitably forced to take the lie as his principle.
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.
It is the artist who realizes that there is a supreme force above him and works gladly away as a small apprentice under God’s heaven.
Any man who has once proclaimed violence as his method is inevitably forced to take the lie as his principle.
Of course God is endlessly multi-dimensional so every religion that exists on earth represents some face, some side of God.
You only have power over people so long as you don’t take everything away from them. But when you’ve robbed a man of everything, he’s no longer in your power – he’s free again.
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.
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.
If one is forever cautious, can one remain a human being?
The battleline between good and evil runs through the heart of every man.
In our country the lie has become not just a moral category but a pillar of the State.
The next war… may well bury Western civilization forever.
Anyone who has proclaimed violence his method inexorably must choose lying as his principle.
The next war… may well bury Western civilization forever.
The sole substitute for an experience which we have not ourselves lived through is art and literature.
The clock of communism has stopped striking. But its concrete building has not yet come crashing down. For that reason, instead of freeing ourselves, we must try to save ourselves from being crushed by its rubble.
First would be the literary side, then the spiritual and philosophical. The political side is required principally because of the necessity of the current Russian position.
The name of ‘reform’ simply covers what is latently a process of the theft of the national heritage.
Literature transmits incontrovertible condensed experience… from generation to generation. In this way literature becomes the living memory of a nation.
For us in Russia communism is a dead dog. For many people in the West, it is still a living lion.
Hastiness and superficiality are the psychic diseases of the 20th century, and more than anywhere else this disease is reflected in the press.
The salvation of mankind lies only in making everything the concern of all.
Hastiness and superficiality are the psychic diseases of the 20th century, and more than anywhere else this disease is reflected in the press.
Man has set for himself the goal of conquering the world but in the processes loses his soul.
We have arrived at an intellectual chaos.
Our government declared that it is conducting some kind of great reforms. In reality, no real reforms were begun and no one at any point has declared a coherent programme.
Human beings yield in many situations, even important and spiritual and central ones, as long as it prolongs one’s well-being.
Literature transmits incontrovertible condensed experience… from generation to generation. In this way literature becomes the living memory of a nation.
Justice is conscience, not a personal conscience but the conscience of the whole of humanity. Those who clearly recognize the voice of their own conscience usually recognize also the voice of justice.
For us in Russia, communism is a dead dog, while, for many people in the West, it is still a living lion.
It is time in the West to defend not so much human rights as human obligations.
If one is forever cautious, can one remain a human being?
It would have been difficult to design a path out of communism worse than the one that has been followed.
