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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.

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
May
Intellectual
Ruling
Civics
World
Outside
Decline
Observer
Loss
Features
Striking
Among
Impression
Causing
Courage
Particularly
Elite
Society
Western
Observers
Noticeable
Lost
Entire
Feature
Notices
Today
West
Elites
Civic

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The thoughts of a prisoner - they're not free either. They keep returning to the same things.
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It is a brave man who is the first to sit down during a standing ovation.
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A drop in the ocean has no fear of a hurricane.
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Nowhere on the planet, nowhere in history, was there a regime more vicious, more bloodthirsty, and at the same time more cunning than the Bolshevik, the self-styled Soviet regime.
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It's an universal law-- intolerance is the first sign of an inadequate education. An ill-educated person behaves with arrogant impatience, whereas truly profound education breeds humility.
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To taste the sea all one needs is one gulp.
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Today when we say the West we are already referring to the West and to Russia. We could use the word 'modernity' if we exclude Africa, and the Islamic world, and partially China.
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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.
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What a force is laughter.
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I am deeply convinced that God is present both in the lives of every person and also in the lives of entire nations.
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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.
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When you're young, you haven't the experience, when you're old you haven't the strength.
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Too much art was no art at all. Like candy instead of bread!
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To do evil a human being must first of all believe that what he's doing is good.
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Education doesn't make you smarter.
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The simple step of a courageous individual is not to take part in the lie. One word of truth outweighs the world.
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There is eternal simplicity to a solution once it has been discovered!
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Like a bicycle, like a wheel that, once rolling, is stable only so long as it keeps moving but falls when its momentum stops, so the game between a man and woman, once begun, can exist only so long as it progresses. If the forward movement today is no more than it was yesterday, the game is over.
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Socialism of any type leads to a total destruction of the human spirit...
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The one good thing about repeating your mistakes is that you know when to cringe
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