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Truth seldom is pleasant it is almost invariably bitter.

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
Invariably
Seldom
Pleasant
Bitter
Almost
Truth

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Bless you, prison, for having been in my life!
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The clock of communism has stopped striking. But its concrete building has not yet come crashing down. For that reason, instead of freeing ourselves, we must try to save ourselves from being crushed by its rubble.
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Whenever the tissue of life is woven of legalistic relationships, this creates an atmosphere of spiritual mediocrity that paralyzes a person's noblest impulses.
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I have always insisted on the need for local self-government for Russia, but I never opposed this model to Western democracy. On the contrary, I have tried to convince my fellow citizens by citing the examples of highly effective local self-government systems in Switzerland and New England, both of which I saw first-hand.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
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Should one point out that from ancient times decline in courage has been considered the beginning of the end?
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
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One word of truth outweighs the whole world.
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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Periods of rapid and fundamental change were never favourable for literature. Significant works, have nearly always and everywhere been created in periods of stability, be it good or bad.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
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Many of you have already found out, and others will find out in the course of their lives, that truth eludes us if we do not concentrate our attention totally on it's pursuit. But even while it eludes us, the illusion of knowing it still lingers and leads to many misunderstandings. Also, truth seldom is pleasant it is almost invariably bitter.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
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That which is called humanism, but what would be more correctly called irreligious anthropocentrism, cannot yield answers to the most essential questions of our life
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
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A day without a dark cloud. Almost a happy day. There were three thousand six hundred and fifty-three days like that in his stretch. From the first clang of the rail to the last clang of the rail. Three thousand six hundred and fifty-three days. The three extra days were for leap years.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
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If it goes well with you, then all is well.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
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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?
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
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... but it is human to be outraged by injustice, even to the point of courting destruction!
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
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We have arrived at an intellectual chaos.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
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When one is already on the edge of the grave, why not resist?
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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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.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
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The solemn pledge to abstain from telling the truth was called socialist realism.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
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Not everything has a name. Some things lead us into a realm beyond words.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn