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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

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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
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

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The fewer limitations the artist imposes on his work, the less chance he has for artistic success.
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What would things been like [in Russia] if during periods of mass arrests people had not simply sat there, paling with terror at every bang on the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but understood they had nothing to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people?
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As the fathers live, so the children play.
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We have to condemn the very idea that some people have the right to repress others.
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An engineer cannot participate in irrationality.
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To preserve his life, should a man pay everything that gives it color, scent and excitement?
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In our age, when technology is gaining control over life, when material well-being is considered the most important goal, when the influence of religion has been weakened everywhere in the world, a special responsibility lies upon the writer.
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If we don't know our own history, then we simply will have to endure all of the same mistakes, all of the same sacrifices, all of the same absurdities over again - times ten.
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Socialism of any type leads to a total destruction of the human spirit...
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A meek fellow ... is a real godsend in any gang.
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... 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.
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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.
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We have been fortunate enough to live at a time when virtue, though it does not triumph, is nonetheless not always tormented by attack dogs. Beaten down, sickly, virtue has now been allowed to enter in all its tatters and sit in the corner, as long as it doesn't raise its voice.
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It is almost always impossible to evaluate at the time events which you have already experienced, and to understand their meaning with the guidance of their effects. All the more unpredictable and surprising to us will be the course of future events.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
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The demands of internal growth are incomparably more important to us...than the need for any external expansion of our power.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
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Your friend will argue with you.
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As for Europe, its claims towards Russia are fairly transparently based on fears about energy, unjustified fears at that.
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Man has set for himself the goal of conquering the world but in the processes loses his soul.
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I would rather have the United States as the world's policeman than the Soviet Union as the world's jailer.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
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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