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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
Change
Work
Never
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More quotes by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

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You know the words from the Bible: 'Build not on sand, but on rock....' Tyrant leaders respect only firmness...and laugh at persons who give in to them.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
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In all probability an outburst of desperation in the midst of general submissiveness will always help.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
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Any man who has once acclaimed violence as his method must inexorably choose falsehood as his principle.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
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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
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Pride grows in the human heart like lard on a pig.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
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The timid civilized world has found nothing with which to oppose the onslaught of a sudden revival of barefaced barbarity, other than concessions and smiles.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
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Of course, my views developed in the course of time. But I have always believed in what I did and never acted against my conscience.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
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Each person has his special moment of life when he unfolded himself to the fullest, felt to the deepest, and expressed himself to the utmost, to himself and to others.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
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Shall I describe the happiness it gave me to go into the classroom and pick up the chalk? ... It seemed to me the supreme, heartbreaking happiness to enter a classroom carrying a register as that bell rang, and start a lesson with the mysterious air of one about to unfold wonders.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
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When you're cold, don't expect sympathy from someone who's warm.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
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Only a magician can fix a head on a body, but any fool can lop it off.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
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Woe to that nation whose literature is disturbed by the intervention of power. Because that is not just a violation against freedom of print, it is the closing down of the heart of the nation, a slashing to pieces of its memory.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
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A horrible human toll the Russian Orthodox Church suffered throughout almost the entire 20th century. The Church is just rising from its knees. Our young post-Soviet state is just learning to respect the Church as an independent institution.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
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For a country to have a great writer is to have another government.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
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Beat a dog once and you only have to show him the whip.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
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Violence can only be concealed by a lie, and the lie can only be maintained by violence.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
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European democracy was originally imbued with a sense of Christian responsibility and self-discipline, but these spiritual principles have been gradually losing their force. Spiritual independence is being pressured on all sides by the dictatorship of self-satisfied vulgarity, of the latest fads, and of group interests.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
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The sole substitute for an experience which we have not ourselves lived through is art and literature.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
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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
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The term national idea is an unclear one. One might think of it as a widely shared understanding among a people as to the desired way of life in their country, an idea that holds sway over the population. A unifying concept like that can be useful, but should never be created artificially or imposed top-down by the powers-that-be.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn