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Unlimited power in the hands of limited people always leads to cruelty.

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
Power
Always
People
Unlimited
Cruelty
Limited
Leads
Hands

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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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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
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A human being is all hope and impatience.
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We have ourselves to save.
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The price of cowardice will only be evil. We shall reap courage and victory only when we dare to make sacrifices.
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I dedicate this to all those who did not live to tell it. And may they please forgive me for not having seen it all nor remembered it all, for not having divined all of it - from The Gulag Archipelago
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How can you expect a man who's warm to understand one who's cold?
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In our age, when technology is gaining control over life, when material well-being is considered the most important goal, when the influence of religion has been weakened everywhere in the world, a special responsibility lies upon the writer.
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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.
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Macbeth's self-justifications were feeble - and his conscience devoured him. Yes, even Iago was a little lamb too. The imagination and the spiritual strength of Shakespeare's evildoers stopped short at a dozen corpses. Because they had no ideology.
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When I was young, the early death of my father cast a shadow over me - and I was afraid to die before all my literary plans came true. But between 30 and 40 years of age my attitude to death became quite calm and balanced. I feel it is a natural, but no means the final, milestone of one's existence.
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How quickly a zek (a prisoner) gets cheeky-or, putting it in literary language, how quickly a man's requirements grow.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
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The task must be to banish from mankind's thought the idea that anybody has the right to use force against righteousness, against justice, against mutual agreements.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
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The battleline between good and evil runs through the heart of every man.
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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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Man has set for himself the goal of conquering the world but in the processes loses his soul.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
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Mourn if you must, but don't stop fighting.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
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One should never direct people towards happiness, because happiness too is an idol of the market-place. One should direct them towards mutual affection. A beast gnawing at its prey can be happy too, but only human beings can feel affection for each other, and this is the highest achievement they can aspire to.
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Such as it is, the press has become the greatest power within the Western World, more powerful than the legislature, the executive and judiciary. One would like to ask by whom has it been elected and to whom is it responsible?
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Any fool can bomb a train, but just try sorting out the mess.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn