Human beings yield in many situations, even important and spiritual and central ones, as long as it prolongs one's well-being. — Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Copy Share Image
Whenever the tissue of life is woven of legalistic relationships, this creates an atmosphere of spiritual mediocrity that paralyzes a person's noblest… — Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Copy Share Image
Art thaws even the frozen, darkened soul, opening it to lofty spiritual experience. — Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Copy Share Image
First would be the literary side, then the spiritual and philosophical. The political side is required principally because of the necessity of… — Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Copy Share Image
European democracy was originally imbued with a sense of Christian responsibility and self-discipline, but these spiritual principles have been gradually losing their… — Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Copy Share Image
In keeping silent about evil, in burying it so deep within us that no sign of it appears on the surface, we… — Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Copy Share Image
... people don't know what they are striving for. They waste themselves in senseless thrashing around for the sake of a handful… — Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Copy Share Image
Macbeth's self-justifications were feeble - and his conscience devoured him. Yes, even Iago was a little lamb too. The imagination and the… — Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Copy Share Image
The strength or weakness of a society depends more on the level of its spiritual life than on its level of industrialization.… — Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Copy Share Image
The intellectual is not defined by professional group and type of occupation. Nor are good upbringing and a good family enough in… — Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Copy Share Image
Woe to that nation whose literature is disturbed by the intervention of power. Because that is not just a violation against "freedom… — Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Copy Share Image
I had grown up among engineers, and I could remember the engineers of the twenties very well indeed: their open, shining intellects,… — 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
