Quotessence
Home / Authors / Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Quotes

Novelist

Filter quotes by topic

AllIfsHumansPeopleMenWorldEvil1968WarCommunismPrison

Famous Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Quotes

“Woe to that nation whose literature is disturbed by the intervention of power. Because that is not just a violation against "freedom of print," it is the closing down of the heart of the nation, a slashing to pieces of its memory. The nation ceases to be mindful of itself, it is deprived of its spiritual unity, and despite a supposedly common language, compatriots suddenly cease to understand one another.”

HeartSpiritualLiteratureLanguageNationsMemoriesCommonPiecesUnityCeaseDespitePrintWoeInterventionDeprivedClosingViolationDisturbedCommon LanguageClosing DownSpiritual Unity
Author:Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Create image

“Human nature is full of riddles; . . . one of those riddles is: how is it that people who have been crushed by the sheer weight of slavery and cast to the bottom of the pit can nevertheless find strength in themselves to rise up and free themselves first in spirit and then in body while those who soar unhampered over the peaks of freedom suddenly lose the taste of freedom, lose the will to defend it, and, hopelessly confused and lost, almost begin to crave slavery?'”

PeopleFirstsHumansHas BeensBodySpiritLostLosesHuman NatureTasteWeightSlaveryBottomCastsConfusedSheerNeverthelessSoarCravePitsCrushedRiddleFinding StrengthLost And Confused
Author:Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Create image

“We hear a constant clamor for rights, rights, always rights, but so very little about responsibility. And we have forgotten God. The need now is for selflessness, for a spirit of sacrifice, for a willingness to put aside personal gains for the salvation of the whole Western world.”

WorldNeedsLittlesWholeWisdomSpiritPoliticsResponsibilityEconomyRightsSacrificeGainsSalvationConstantWesternForgottenLiberalismWillingnessSelflessnessWestern WorldClamorPersonal Gain
Author:Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Create image

“Our Twentieth Century has proved to be more cruel than preceding centuries, and the first fifty years have not erased all its horrors. Our world is rent asunder by those same old cave-age emotions of greed, envy, lack of control, mutual hostility which have picked up in passing respectable pseudonyms like class struggle, radical conflict, struggle of the masses, trade-union disputes.”

WorldYearsFirstsAgePoliticsEmotionClassStruggleEconomyCenturyHorrorConflictMassTradeUnionsGreedEnvyPassingPassingsRadicalLiberalismFiftyMutualOur World20th CenturyCavesDisputesHostilityRespectableClass StruggleTrade UnionsPseudonymsLack Of Control
Author:Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Create image

“Violence, less and less embarrassed by the limits imposed by centuries of lawfulness, is brazenly and victoriously striding across the whole world, unconcerned that its infertility has been demonstrated and proved many times in history. What is more, it is not simply crude power that triumphs abroad, but its exultant justification. The world is being inundated by the brazen conviction that power can do anything, justice nothing.”

WorldHas BeensWholeWisdomPoliticsCan DoJusticeEconomyViolenceCenturyLimitsConvictionWhole WorldTriumphLiberalismJustificationEmbarrassedCrudeBrazenInfertilityUnconcernedLawfulness
Author:Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Create image