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The foundation stones of a great building are destined to groan and be pressed upon it is not for them to crown the edifice.

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
Great
Pressed
Crown
Crowns
Destined
Stones
Foundation
Building
Groan
Upon
Edifice

More quotes by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

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Economic growth is not only unncessary, but ruinous.
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I leaf through the ancient philosophers and find my newest discoveries there.
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Violence does not and cannot flourish by itself it is inevitably intertwined with lying.
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It was wrong to be too pragmatic, to judge people solely by results it was more humane to judge by intentions.
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Good or evil-you cannot build your life apart from this distinction.
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The battleline between good and evil runs through the heart of every man.
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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.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
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Thus, literature, together with language, preserves and protects a nation's soul.
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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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We have been fortunate enough to live at a time when virtue, though it does not triumph, is nonetheless not always tormented by attack dogs. Beaten down, sickly, virtue has now been allowed to enter in all its tatters and sit in the corner, as long as it doesn't raise its voice.
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A great number of publications and movies on the history of the 20th century - albeit of uneven quality - are evidence of a growing demand. Quite recently, the state-owned TV channel 'Russia' aired a series based on Varlam Shalamov's works, showing the terrible, cruel truth about Stalin's camps. It was not watered down.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
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Your friend will argue with you.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
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Unlimited power in the hands of limited people always leads to cruelty.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
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We hear a constant clamor for rights, rights, always rights, but so very little about responsibility. And we have forgotten God. The need now is for selflessness, for a spirit of sacrifice, for a willingness to put aside personal gains for the salvation of the whole Western world.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
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Society must cease to look upon 'progress' as something desirable. 'Eternal Progress' is a nonsensical myth. What must be implemented is not a 'steadily expanding economy', but a zero growth economy, a stable economy. Economic growth is not only unnecessary but ruinous.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
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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.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
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Any man who has once proclaimed violence as his method is inevitably forced to take the lie as his principle.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
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I have always insisted on the need for local self-government for Russia, but I never opposed this model to Western democracy. On the contrary, I have tried to convince my fellow citizens by citing the examples of highly effective local self-government systems in Switzerland and New England, both of which I saw first-hand.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
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If one is a professional soldier, it is part of one's job to die sooner or later.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
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To coexist with communism on the same planet is impossible. Either it will spread, cancer-like, to destroy mankind, or else mankind will have to rid itself of communism (and even then face lengthy treatment for secondary tumors).
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn