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A storm breaks trees. It only bends grass.

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
Storm
Tree
Break
Bends
Breaks
Grass
Trees

More quotes by 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.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
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When things are too clear, they are no longer interesting.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
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Justice is conscience, not a personal conscience but the conscience of the whole of humanity. Those who clearly recognize the voice of their own conscience usually recognize also the voice of justice.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
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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.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
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In every life there is one particular event that is decisive for the entire person-for his fate, his convictions, his passions.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
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The simple step of a courageous individual is not to take part in the lie. One word of truth outweighs the world.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
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After all, man is a complicated being, why should he be explainable by logic?
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
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A meek fellow ... is a real godsend in any gang.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
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It's true that private enterprise is extremely flexible, But its only good within very narrow limits. If private enterprise isn't held in an iron grip it gives birth to people who are no better than beasts, those stock-exchange people with greedy appetites beyond restraint.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
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In military science there is a principle more important than Forward: it is that the task should be proportionate to the means.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
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Let us drive away those cruel, greedy oppressors, governments, and the new ones, having just laid aside grenades and rifles, will be just and understanding. Far from it.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
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Thus, literature, together with language, preserves and protects a nation's soul.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
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... We brush aside all scales not our own, as if they were follies or delusions.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
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Just as King Midas turned everything to gold, Stalin turned everything to mediocrity.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
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Nowadays we don't think much of a man's love for an animal we laugh at people who are attached to cats. But if we stop loving animals, aren't we bound to stop loving humans too?
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
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We are so attached to the earth, and yet we are incapable of holding onto it.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
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I refuse to see literature as amusement, as a game. I think that you ought not to approach literature without a moral responsibility for every word you write.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
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It makes me happier, more secure, to think that I do not have to plan and manage everything for myself, that I am only a sword made sharp to smite the unclean forces, an enchanted sword to cleave and disperse them. Grant, O Lord, that I may not break as I strike! Let me not fall from Thy hand!
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
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... some kind of clean, pure feeling does live within us, existing apart from all our convictions.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
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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