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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.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

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Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Age: 89 †
Born: 1918
Born: December 11
Died: 2008
Died: January 1
Historian
Militant
Military Personnel
Novelist
Opinion Journalist
Playwright
Poet
Prosaist
Public Figure
School Teacher
Screenwriter
Writer
Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn
Alexander Solzhenitsyn
Behinds
Clock
Behind
Dust
Already
Throw
Open
Blow
Dawned
Times
Heavy
Repression
Even
Dear
Curtains
Time
Outside
Suspect
Watches
Suspects

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The term national idea is an unclear one. One might think of it as a widely shared understanding among a people as to the desired way of life in their country, an idea that holds sway over the population. A unifying concept like that can be useful, but should never be created artificially or imposed top-down by the powers-that-be.
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Own only what you can always carry with you: know languages, know countries, know people. Let your memory be your travel bag.
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The earlier, the more fun. Why put it off? It’s the atomic age!
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The battleline between good and evil runs through the heart of every man.
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The one good thing about repeating your mistakes is that you know when to cringe
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The most intense patriotism always flourishes in the rear.
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To reject this inhuman Communist ideology is simply to be a human being. Such a rejection is more than a political act. It is a protest of our souls against those who would have us forget the concepts of good and evil.
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A decline in courage may be the most striking feature that an outside observer notices in the West today. The Western world has lost its civic courage . . . . Such a decline in courage is particularly noticeable among the ruling and intellectual elite, causing an impression of a loss of courage by the entire society.
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If decade after decade the truth cannot be told, each person's mind begins to roam irretrievably. One's fellow countrymen become harder to understand than Martians.
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Lord, give me the strength to accomplish what You've given me to do and the faith to trust You that what I haven't been able to accomplish You've already assigned to someone else.
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The solemn pledge to abstain from telling the truth was called socialist realism.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
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The one who doesn't pull his weight is not asked to pull, while the one who does, pulls for two.
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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
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Education doesn't make you smarter.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
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The secret is that when you've been pitched head first into hell you just write about it
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In every life there is one particular event that is decisive for the entire person-for his fate, his convictions, his passions.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
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A whole week, a single campaign, a month, a week, even a day was far more than enough to cut a company or platoon to ribbons or cripple a man for life: it needed only a quarter of an hour.
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On our crowded planet there are no longer any internal affairs!
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Generosity is a two-edged virtue for an artist - it nourishes his imagination but has a fatal effect on his routine.
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It is not our level of prosperity that makes for happiness but the kinship of heart to heart and the way we look at the world. Both attitudes lie within our power, so that a man is happy so long as he chooses to be happy, and no one can stop him.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn