Quote

Macbeth's self-justifications were feeble - and his conscience devoured him. Yes, even Iago was a little lamb too. The imagination and the spiritual strength of Shakespeare's evildoers stopped short at a dozen corpses. Because they had no ideology.

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
Spiritual
Shakespeare
Justifications
Littles
Dozen
Macbeth
Little
Ideology
Devoured
Self
Stopped
Lamb
Even
Conscience
Feeble
Short
Lambs
Strength
Corpses
Evildoers
Imagination
Justification
Iago

More quotes by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Image
There is no point asserting and reasserting what the heart cannot believe.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Image
Thus, literature, together with language, preserves and protects a nation's soul.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Image
Who will dare say he has defined art?
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Image
Who has the skill to make a narrow, obstinate human being aware of others' far-off grief and joy, to make him understand dimensions and delusions he himself has never lived through? Propaganda, coercion, and scientific proofs are powerless. But happily, in our world there is a way. It is art, and it is literature.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Image
Human nature is full of riddles and contradictions its very complexity engenders art-and by art I mean the search for something more than simple linear formulations, flat solutions, oversimplified explanations.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Image
Anything too far out of tune with our attitude is lost, either in the ears themselves or somewhere beyond, but it is lost.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Image
A great writer is, so to speak, a secret government in his country
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Image
... the inexorable lesson of centuries: suffering must be borne there is no way out.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Image
It takes a fool to rush off to war!
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Image
If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Image
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
Image
The meaning of earthly existence lies not, as we have grown used to thinking, in prospering, but in the development of the soul...
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Image
We will die, but art will remain.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Image
To his and everybody else's way of thinking, you should build a house with your own hands before you start talking about being an engineer.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Image
The Universe has as many different centers as there are living beings in it.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Image
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.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Image
Hastiness and superficiality are the psychic diseases of the 20th century, and more than anywhere else this disease is reflected in the press.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Image
... We brush aside all scales not our own, as if they were follies or delusions.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Image
One drop of truth can outweigh an ocean of lies
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Image
... people don't know what they are striving for. They waste themselves in senseless thrashing around for the sake of a handful of goods and die without realizing their spiritual wealth.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn