Alexander Solzhenitsyn Quotes

You only have power over people as long as you don’t take everything away from them. But when you’ve robbed a man of everything, he’s no longer in your power-he’s free again.

The battleline between good and evil runs through the heart of every man.

The belly is an ungrateful wretch, it never remembers past favors, it always wants more tomorrow.

To do evil a human being must first of all believe that what he’s doing is good…

Human beings yield in many situations, even important and spiritual and central ones, as long as it prolongs their life, their comfort, or their well-being. They also yield if they see a greater good resulting from their yield.

You can resolve to live your life with integrity. Let your credo be this: Let the lie come into the world, let it even triumph. But not through me.

Violence can only be concealed by a lie, and the lie can only be maintained by violence. Any man who has once proclaimed violence as his method is inevitably forced to take the lie as his principle.

A state of war only serves as an excuse for domestic tyranny.

The simple act of an ordinary brave man is not to participate in lies, not to support false actions!

If one is forever cautious, can one remain a human being?

You only have power over people so long as you don’t take everything away from them. But when you’ve robbed a man of everything, he’s no longer in your power—he’s free again.

Ideology—that is what gives evildoing its long-sought justification and gives the evildoer the necessary steadfastness and determination.

Justice is conscience, not a personal conscience but the conscience of the whole of humanity.

Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes of people, but right through every human heart.

You must have been warned against letting the golden hours slip by. Yes, but some of them are golden only because we let them slip.

I declare: There was no waste.

The separation of church and state should never mean the separation of nation and religion.

It is not because the truth is too difficult to see that we make mistakes… We make mistakes because the easiest and most comfortable course for us is to seek insight where it accords with our emotions—especially selfish ones.

The dividing line between good and evil runs not between states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either—but right through every human heart—and through all human hearts.

There is no blessing greater than a sensitive conscience, a habit of analyzing acts and situations in terms of good and evil.

Own only what you can always carry with you: know languages, know countries, know people. Let your memory be your travel bag.

A state of war only serves as an excuse for domestic tyranny.

Hastiness and superficiality are the psychic diseases of the twentieth century, and more than anywhere else this disease is reflected in the press.

Stupidity is not the main problem of our times; evil is.

Own only what you always carry with you: your memories and your knowledge.

Justice is conscience, not a personal conscience but the conscience of the whole of humanity.

You can only solve a problem when you acknowledge that it exists, and you can only defeat evil when you recognize it as such.

One word of truth outweighs the world.

The battle for human rights, for human dignity, for a humane society, that is our task and we’ll have our work cut out for us.

If one is forever cautious, can one remain a human being?

For us in Russia, communism is a dead dog, while, for many people in the West, it is still a living lion.

You can measure a society’s progress by the treatment of its prisoners.

A state of war only serves as an excuse for domestic tyranny.

To do evil, a human being must first of all believe that what he’s doing is good.

To stand up for truth is not to put one’s life in danger, but to risk one’s life for the higher values of humanity.

Own only what you can always carry with you: know languages, know countries, know people. Let your memory be your travel bag.

Violence can only be concealed by a lie, and the lie can only be maintained by violence.

Hastiness and superficiality are the psychic diseases of the twentieth century and more than anywhere else this disease is reflected in the press.

To do evil, a human being must first of all believe that what he’s doing is good.

I declare: There was no waste.

Justice is conscience, not a personal conscience but the conscience of the whole of humanity.

The only difference between the saint and the sinner is that every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future.

Ideology—that is what gives evildoing its long-sought justification and gives the evildoer the necessary steadfastness and determination.

The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either—but right through every human heart—and through all human hearts. This line shifts. Inside us.

One man who stopped lying could bring down a tyranny.

Pride grows in the human heart like lard on a pig.

Human life is given to us not as a piece of property to buy and sell, but so that we may defend the innocent against evil and, I would add, so we can give ourselves to God.The mind can do no better than submit or refute; the heart can do all things.

You can only solve a problem when you acknowledge its existence, and you can only defeat evil when you recognize it as such.

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?