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That which is called humanism, but what would be more correctly called irreligious anthropocentrism, cannot yield answers to the most essential questions of our life

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
Essential
Essentials
Questions
Answers
Called
Irreligious
Cannot
Humanism
Would
Correctly
Life
Yield

More quotes by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

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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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For me faith is the foundation and support of one's life.
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Here again we witness the single outcome of a worldwide process, with East and West yielding the same results, and once again for the same reason: Men have forgotten God.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
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But there are still people whose moral superiority defeats your own.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
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If I were called upon to identify briefly the principal trait of the entire 20th century... I would be unable to find anything more precise and pithy than to repeat once again: Men have forgotten God.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
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Communist propaganda would sometimes include statements such as we include almost all the commandments of the Gospel in our ideology. The difference is that the Gospel asks all this to be achieved through love, through self-limitation, but socialism only uses coercion. This is one point.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
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It is time in the West to defend not so much human rights as human obligations.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
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An engineer cannot participate in irrationality.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
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Anything too far out of tune with our attitude is lost, either in the ears themselves or somewhere beyond, but it is lost.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
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A great writer is, so to speak, a secret government in his country
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
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Every human act can be disguised with a coating of gilt.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
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Patriotism means unqualified and unwavering love for the nation, which implies not uncritical eagerness to serve, not support for unjust claims, but frank assessment of its vices and sins, and penitence for them.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
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If... if... We didn't love freedom enough. And even more - we had no awareness of the real situation. We spent ourselves in one unrestrained outburst in 1917, and then we hurried to submit. We submitted with pleasure! ........... We purely and simply deserved everything that happened afterward.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
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The simple act of an ordinary courageous man is not to take part, not to support lies! Let that come into the world and even reign over it, but not through me. Writers and artists can do more: they can vanquish lies! ... Lies can stand up against much in the world, but not against art.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
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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.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
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You get no thanks from your belly-it always forgets what you've just done for it and comes begging again the next day.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
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Even the most rational approach to ethics is defenseless if there isn't the will to do what is right.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
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Good or evil-you cannot build your life apart from this distinction.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
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Periods of rapid and fundamental change were never favourable for literature. Significant works, have nearly always and everywhere been created in periods of stability, be it good or bad.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
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For us in Russia, communism is a dead dog, while, for many people in the West, it is still a living lion.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn