Quote

Only a magician can fix a head on a body, but any fool can lop it off.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

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
Magician
Fool
Head
War
Body

More quotes by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Image
We particularly like people who value us highly.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Image
The revolution is an amalgam of former Party functionaries, quasi- democrats, KGB officers, and black-market wheeler-dealers, who are standing in power now and have represented a dirty hybrid unseen in world history
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Image
You only have power over people so long as you don't take everything away from them. But when you've robbed a man of everything, he's no longer in your power - he's free again.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Image
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
Image
It is a brave man who is the first to sit down during a standing ovation.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Image
History is too slow for our life, for our hearts.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Image
But there are still people whose moral superiority defeats your own.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Image
Someone that you have deprived of everything is no longer in your power. He is once again entirely free.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Image
We do not err because truth is difficult to see. It is visible at a glance. We err because this is more comfortable.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Image
To destroy a people, you must first sever their roots.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Image
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
Image
Why should I trust you? We haven't drunk from the same bowl of soup.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Image
One drop of truth can outweigh an ocean of lies
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Image
Even the most rational approach to ethics is defenseless if there isn't the will to do what is right.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Image
Here again we witness the single outcome of a worldwide process, with East and West yielding the same results, and once again for the same reason: Men have forgotten God.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Image
We have to condemn publicly the very idea that some people have the right to repress others... When we neither punish nor reproach evildoers ... we are ripping the foundations of justice from beneath new generations.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Image
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
Image
You should rejoice that you're in prison. Here you have time to think about your soul.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Image
When you're cold, don't expect sympathy from someone who's warm.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Image
Ideology - that is what gives evildoing its long-sought justification and gives the evildoer the neccessary steadfastness and determination... Thanks to ideology, the twentieth century was fated to experience evildoing on a scale calculated in the millions.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn