Gorbachev's administration was amazingly politically naïve, inexperienced and irresponsible towards the country. It was not governance but a thoughtless renunciation of power. The admiration of the West in return only strengthened his conviction that his approach was right. But let… — Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Copy Share Image
If you wanted to put the world to rights, who should you begin with: yourself or others? — Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Copy Share Image
“...you are strong only as long as you don't deprive people of everything . For a person you've taken everything from is no longer… — Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Copy Share Image
Woe to that nation whose literature is cut short by the intrusion of force. This is not merely interference with freedom of the press… — Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Copy Share Image
If there were no executioners, there would be no executions. — Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Copy Share Image
Not everything has a name. Some things lead us into a realm beyond words. — Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Copy Share Image
It is almost always impossible to evaluate at the time events which you have already experienced, and to understand their meaning with the guidance… — Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Copy Share Image
Human nature is full of riddles; . . . one of those riddles is: how is it that people who have been crushed by the sheer weight of slavery and cast to the bottom of the pit can nevertheless find strength in themselves to rise up and free themselves first in spirit and then in body while those who soar… — Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Copy Share
“It was astonishing that the pseudo wreckers, who knew perfectly well that they weren't wreckers, believed that military men and priests were being shaken up justifiably. The military men, who knew they hadn't worked for foreign intelligence services and had not sabotaged the Red Army, believed readily enough that the engineers were wreckers and that the priests deserved to be… — Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Copy Share
When the whole discussion of "developing a national idea" hastily began in post-Soviet Russia, I tried to pour cold water on it with the… — Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Copy Share Image
“It was granted me to carry away from my prison years on my bent back, which nearly broke beneath its load, this essential experience; how a human being becomes evil and how good. In the intoxication of youthful successes I had felt myself to be infallible, and I was therefore cruel. In the surfeit of power I was a murderer,… — Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Copy Share
Call no day happy 'til it is done; call no man happy til he is dead. — Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Copy Share Image
