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When I was in the gulag I would sometimes even write on stone walls. I used to write on scraps of paper, then I memorised the contents and destroyed the scraps.

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
Would
Stones
Gulag
Paper
Gulags
Wall
Scraps
Write
Contents
Used
Scrap
Sometimes
Walls
Writing
Stone
Even
Destroyed

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If so far we have been unable to see clearly or to reflect the eternal lineaments of truth, is it not because we too are still moving towards some end-because we are still alive?
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... the inexorable lesson of centuries: suffering must be borne there is no way out.
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There is something predetermined in the mutual attraction between Germany and Russia. Otherwise, this attraction would not have survived two ghastly World Wars.
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Economic growth is not only unncessary, but ruinous.
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After all, man is a complicated being, why should he be explainable by logic?
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To do evil a human being must first of all believe that what he's doing is good, or else that it's a well-considered act in conformity with natural law. Fortunately, it is in the nature of the human being to seek a justification for his actions.
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All classifications in this world lack sharp boundaries, and all transitions are gradual.
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Unlimited power in the hands of limited people always leads to cruelty.
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We are so attached to the earth, and yet we are incapable of holding onto it.
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...it's only on a black day that you begin to have friends.
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Everyone is guilty of something or has something to conceal. All one has to do is look hard enough to find what it is.
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Even the most rational approach to ethics is defenseless if there isn't the will to do what is right.
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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.
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There are defendants whom the judges are afraid of.
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I am of course confident that I will fulfill my tasks as a writer in all circumstances - from my grave even more successfully and more irrefutably than in my lifetime.
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What is the most precious thing in the world? I see now that it is the knowledge that you have no part in injustice. Injustice is stronger than you, it always was and always will be, but let it not be done through you.
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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.
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If I were called upon to identify briefly the principal trait of the entire 20th century... I would be unable to find anything more precise and pithy than to repeat once again: Men have forgotten God.
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The thoughts of a prisoner - they're not free either. They keep returning to the same things.
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It's not the sea that drowns you-it's the puddle.
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