Quotes By Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

For us in Russia, communism is a dead dog, while, for many people in the West, it is still a living lion.

Anyone who has proclaimed violence his method inexorably must choose lying as his principle.

The name of "reform" simply covers what is latently a process of the theft of the national heritage.

Own only what you can always carry with you: know languages, know countries, know people. Let your memory be your travel bag.

Literature transmits incontrovertible condensed experience... from generation to generation. In this way literature becomes the living memory of a nation.

The salvation of mankind lies only in making everything the concern of all.

Not everything has a name. Some things lead us into a realm beyond words.

It is time in the West to defend not so much human rights as human obligations.

When truth is discovered by someone else, it loses something of its attractiveness.

A man is happy so long as he chooses to be happy and nothing can stop him.

Religion always remains higher than everyday life. In order to make the elevation towards religion easier for people, religion must be able to alter its forms in relation to the consciousness of modern man.

It would have been difficult to design a path out of communism worse than the one that has been followed.

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.

How can you expect a man who's warm to understand one who's cold?

There are a lot of clear thinkers everywhere.

The next war... may well bury Western civilization forever.

Man has set for himself the goal of conquering the world but in the processes loses his soul.

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.

We have arrived at an intellectual chaos.

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.

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.

Violence can only be concealed by a lie, and the lie can only be maintained by violence.

Talent is always conscious of its own abundance, and does not object to sharing.

Of course God is endlessly multi-dimensional so every religion that exists on earth represents some face, some side of God.

I can say without affectation that I belong to the Russian convict world no less than I do to Russian literature. I got my education there, and it will last forever.

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.

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.

The battleline between good and evil runs through the heart of every man.

A state of war only serves as an excuse for domestic tyranny.

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.