Share
×
Inspirational Quotes
Authors
Professions
Topics
Tags
Quote
Even if we are spared destruction by war, our lives will have to change if we want to save life from self-destruction.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Share
Change background
T
T
T
Change font
Original
TAGS & TOPICS
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
Self
Spared
Even
Antiwar
Life
Destruction
Save
Peace
Lives
War
Change
More quotes by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
What would things been like [in Russia] if during periods of mass arrests people had not simply sat there, paling with terror at every bang on the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but understood they had nothing to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people?
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Just as King Midas turned everything to gold, Stalin turned everything to mediocrity.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
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.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Modern society is hypnotized by socialism. It is prevented by socialism from seeing the mortal danger it is in. And one of the greatest dangers of all is that you have lost all sense of danger, you cannot even see where it's coming from as it moves swiftly towards you.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Even the most rational approach to ethics is defenseless if there isn't the will to do what is right.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
A day without a dark cloud. Almost a happy day. There were three thousand six hundred and fifty-three days like that in his stretch. From the first clang of the rail to the last clang of the rail. Three thousand six hundred and fifty-three days. The three extra days were for leap years.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
When things are too clear, they are no longer interesting.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
One world, one mankind cannot exist in the face of six, four or even two scales of values: We shall be torn apart by this disparity of rhythm, this disparity of vibrations.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
When you're cold, don't expect sympathy from someone who's warm.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Satiety depends not at all on how much we eat, but on how we eat. It's the same with happiness, the very same...happiness doesn't depend on how many external blessings we have snatched from life. It depends only on our attitude toward them. There's a saying about it in the Taoist ethic: 'Whoever is capable of contentment will always be satisfied.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
The perception of the West as mostly a knight of democracy has been replaced with the disappointed belief that pragmatism, often cynical and selfish, lies at the core of Western policies. For many Russians it was a grave disillusion, a crushing of ideals.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
You're sincere, but in order not to upset your views you avoid talking with people who think differently. You pick your thoughts from conversations with people like yourself, from books written by people like yourself. In physics they call it resonance. You start out with modest opinions, but they match and build each other up to a scale.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
But nothing is all black in nature.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
If we look far into the future, one can see a time in the 21st century when both Europe and the USA will be in dire need of Russia as an ally.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
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.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
In every life there is one particular event that is decisive for the entire person-for his fate, his convictions, his passions.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
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.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Why should I trust you? We haven't drunk from the same bowl of soup.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Once the fight is on-strike quickly and often.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
If you wanted to put the world to rights, who should you begin with: yourself or others?
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
