Quotes from Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

I can say without affectation that I belong to the Russian convict world no less than I do to Russian literature. I got my education there, and it will last forever.

The name of 'reform' simply covers what is latently a process of the theft of the national heritage.

When you're cold, don't expect sympathy from someone who's warm.

The essence of life will never be captured by even the greatest of formulas.

For me faith is the foundation and support of one's life.

Bless you, prison, for having been in my life!

In every life there is one particular event that is decisive for the entire person-for his fate, his convictions, his passions.

If so far we have been unable to see clearly or to reflect the eternal lineaments of truth, is it not because we too are still moving towards some end-because we are still alive?

History is too slow for our life, for our hearts.

There is a law of time, a law of oblivion: glory to the dead; life to the living.

Woe to that nation whose literature is cut short by the intrusion of force. This is not merely interference with freedom of the press but the sealing up of a nation's heart, the excision of its memory.

There are a lot of clear thinkers everywhere.

If we look far into the future, one can see a time in the 21st century when both Europe and the USA will be in dire need of Russia as an ally.

During my time in the camps, I had got to know the enemies of the human race quite well: they respect the big fist and nothing else; the harder you slug them, the safer you will be.

You should rejoice that you're in prison. Here you have time to think about your soul.

Some are bound to die young. By dying young a person stays young in people's memory. If he burns brightly before he dies, his brightness shines for all time.

Today when we say the West we are already referring to the West and to Russia. We could use the word 'modernity' if we exclude Africa, and the Islamic world, and partially China.

Not everything has a name. Some things lead us into a realm beyond words.

Yes, you live with your feet in the mud and there's no time to be thinking about how you got in or how you're going to get out.

Nowhere on the planet, nowhere in history, was there a regime more vicious, more bloodthirsty, and at the same time more cunning than the Bolshevik, the self-styled Soviet regime.

Of course, my views developed in the course of time. But I have always believed in what I did and never acted against my conscience.

You took my freedom away a long time ago and you can't give it back because you haven't got it yourself.

It would have been difficult to design a path out of communism worse than the one that has been followed.

We didn't love freedom enough.