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Was It Gorky Who Had Said, "if Your Children Are No Better Than You Are, You Have Fathered Them In Vain, Indeed You Have Lived In Vain".
-Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
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Was It Gorky Who

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
...
Was It Gorky Who Had Said, "if Your Children Are No Better Than You Are, You Have Fathered Them In Vain, Indeed You Have Lived In Vain".

Understanding the Quote: "was it gorky who had said, "if your children are no better..."

This quote by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn reflects deeply on the theme of children. It connects to the universal human journey of purpose, motivation, and reflection. Often categorized under Children, Parenting, Vain, the quote offers insight, emotional clarity, and intellectual inspiration to readers worldwide.

Whether you’re a student exploring new ideas, a leader trying to motivate your team, or someone seeking direction in life — this quote provides value. It resonates because it’s more than words — it’s a bridge between experience and wisdom. It shows how Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn interprets life's core challenges and triumphs.

Lessons From the Quote

This quote teaches resilience and focus. It reminds readers that no matter where they stand in life, reflection and self-awareness lead to growth. Each word has meaning, and when studied, it becomes clear how impactful thoughtful language can be.

About Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn is celebrated for insightful thoughts on children and parenting. Their legacy lives on through writings that guide, comfort, and inspire. Discover more on their profile page.

Actionable Takeaways

  • Reflect on how this quote applies to your current life path.
  • Share the message with someone who needs inspiration.
  • Write your thoughts on this quote in a journal or blog post.
  • Use it as a daily affirmation or reminder.

Closing Thoughts

Quotes like this endure because they capture universal truths. They comfort us in solitude and empower us in groups. Carry this quote forward — live by its wisdom, share its message, and keep its essence alive.

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Topic
Children
Parenting
Vain
More From Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
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.
Spiritual
Self
Imagination
The Battleline Between Good And Evil Runs Through The Heart Of Every Man.
Running
Heart
Men
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.
Mistake
Sacrifice
Endure
... Mutual Lack Of Understanding Carries The Threat Of Imminent And Violent Destruction.
Understanding
Violent
Destruction
The Solemn Pledge To Abstain From Telling The Truth Was Called Socialist Realism.
Telling The Truth
Realism
Socialist
Just As King Midas Turned Everything To Gold, Stalin Turned Everything To Mediocrity.
Kings
Gold
Mediocrity
In Keeping Silent About Evil, In Burying It So Deep Within Us That No Sign Of It Appears On The Surface, We Are Implanting It, And It Will Rise Up A Thousandfold In The Future. When We Neither Punish Nor Reproach Evildoers . . . We Are Ripping The Foundations Of Justice From Beneath New Generations.
Spiritual
Integrity
Evil
The Price Of Cowardice Will Only Be Evil. We Shall Reap Courage And Victory Only When We Dare To Make Sacrifices.
Wisdom
Sacrifice
Evil
Of Course God Is Endlessly Multi-dimensional So Every Religion That Exists On Earth Represents Some Face, Some Side Of God.
Religion
Earth
Faces
This Deliberately Nurtured Hatred Then Spreads To All That Is Alive, To Life Itself, To The World With Its Colors, Sounds, And Shapes, To The Human Body. The Embittered Art Of The Twentieth Century Is Perishing As A Result Of This Ugly Hate, For Art Is Fruitless Without Love. In The East Art Has Collapsed Because It Has Been Knocked Down And Trampled Upon, But In The West The Fall Has Been Voluntary, A Decline Into A Contrived And Pretentious Quest Where The Artist, Instead Of Attempting To Reveal The Divine Plan, Tries To Put Himself In The Place Of God.
Art
Hate
Fall
The Essence Of Life Will Never Be Captured By Even The Greatest Of Formulas.
Life
Essence
Formulas
The One Who Doesn't Pull His Weight Is Not Asked To Pull, While The One Who Does, Pulls For Two.
Work
Two
Doe
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, It Oscillates With The Years. And Even Within Hearts Overwhelmed By Evil, One Small Bridgehead Of Good Is Retained.
Party
Heart
Humility
Who Has The Skill To Make A Narrow, Obstinate Human Being Aware Of Others' Far-off Grief And Joy, To Make Him Understand Dimensions And Delusions He Himself Has Never Lived Through? Propaganda, Coercion, And Scientific Proofs Are Powerless. But Happily, In Our World There Is A Way. It Is Art, And It Is Literature.
Art
Grief
Our World
... Any Country That Is Not Careful Can Be Seized.
Country
Careful
I Dedicate This To All Those Who Did Not Live To Tell It. And May They Please Forgive Me For Not Having Seen It All Nor Remembered It All, For Not Having Divined All Of It - From The Gulag Archipelago
Forgive Me
Forgiving
May
We Do Not Err Because Truth Is Difficult To See. It Is Visible At A Glance. We Err Because This Is More Comfortable.
Truth
Integrity
Vision
In All Probability An Outburst Of Desperation In The Midst Of General Submissiveness Will Always Help.
Helping
Desperation
Midst
To His And Everybody Else's Way Of Thinking, You Should Build A House With Your Own Hands Before You Start Talking About Being An Engineer.
Thinking
Engineering
Hands
In Our Country They Do Not Permit Any Information To Be X-rayed Through And Through, Nor Any Discussion To Encompass All The Facets Of A Subject. All This Is Invariably Suppressed At The Very Beginning, So No Ray Of Light Should Fall On The Naked Body Of Truth. And Then All This Is Piled Up In One Formless Heap Covering Many Years, Where It Languishes For Whole Decades, Until All Interest And All Means Of Sorting Out The Rusty Blocks From All This Trash Are Lost.
Country
Block
Fall
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?
Russia
Doors
People
I Think The Gap Between The Rich And The Poor Is A Dangerous Phenomenon In Russia And It Needs The Attention Of The State. The Only Reasonable Way To Correct The Situation Today Is Not To Go After Big Businesses, But To Give Breathing Room To Medium And Small Businesses. That Means Protecting Citizens And Small Entrepreneurs From Arbitrary Rule And From Corruption. It Means Investing The Revenues From The National Natural Resources Into The National Infrastructure, Education And Health Care. And We Must Learn To Do So Without Shameful Theft And Embezzlement.
Mean
Thinking
Giving
Talent Is Always Conscious Of Its Own Abundance, And Does Not Object To Sharing.
Doe
Talent
Abundance
I Have Always Had That Inner Drive, Since My Birth. And I Have Always Devoted Myself Gladly To Work - To Work And To The Struggle.
Struggle
Birth
Devoted
If Only It Were All So Simple! If Only There Were Evil People Somewhere Insidiously Committing Evil Deeds, And It Were Necessary Only To Separate Them From The Rest Of Us And Destroy Them. 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?
Wisdom
Peace
Fun
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.
Determination
Long
Giving
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.
Crush
Selfish
Lying
Communist Propaganda Would Sometimes Include Statements Such As "we Include Almost All The Commandments Of The Gospel In Our Ideology". The Difference Is That The Gospel Asks All This To Be Achieved Through Love, Through Self-limitation, But Socialism Only Uses Coercion. This Is One Point.
Self
Differences
Use
The Fewer Limitations The Artist Imposes On His Work, The Less Chance He Has For Artistic Success.
Artist
Chance
Fewer
I Leaf Through The Ancient Philosophers And Find My Newest Discoveries There.
Discovery
Philosopher
Ancient
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.
Wisdom
Responsibility
Sacrifice
Literature That Is Not The Breath Of Contemporary Society, That Dares Not Transmit The Pains And Fears Of That Society . . . Loses The Confidence Of Its Own People, And Its Published Works Are Used As Wastepaper Instead Of Being Read.
Pain
People
Literature
A Fish Does Not Campaign Against Fisheries-it Only Tries To Slip Through The Mesh.
Survival
Trying
Doe
If You Ever Get Twenty-five Years For Nothing, If You Find Yourself Wearing Four Number Patches On Your Clothes, Holding Your Hands Permanently Behind Your Back, Submitting To Searches Morning And Evening, Working Until You Are Utterly Exhausted, Dragged Into The Cooler Whenever Someone Denounces You, Trodden Deeper And Deeper Into The Ground-from The Hole You're In, The Fine Words Of The Great Humanists Will Sound Like The Chatter Of The Well-fed And Free.
Morning
Years
Clothes
If Someone Asked You, Why Not Help Him Out?
Why Not
Helping
Ifs
I Am Of Course Confident That I Will Fulfill My Tasks As A Writer In All Circumstances - From My Grave Even More Successfully And More Irrefutably Than In My Lifetime.
Tasks
Censorship
Lifetime
The Task Of The Artist Is To Sense More Keenly Than Others The Harmony Of The World, The Beauty And The Outrage Of What Man Has Done To It, And Poignantly To Let People Know.
Art
Men
People
Each Person Has His Special Moment Of Life When He Unfolded Himself To The Fullest, Felt To The Deepest, And Expressed Himself To The Utmost, To Himself And To Others.
Life
Special
Moments
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?
Inspirational
Heart
Cutting
Nowadays We Don't Think Much Of A Man's Love For An Animal; We Laugh At People Who Are Attached To Cats. But If We Stop Loving Animals, Aren't We Bound To Stop Loving Humans Too?
Love
Cat
Thinking
If One Is Forever Cautious, Can One Remain A Human Being?
Gambling
Forever
Action
If There Were No Executioners, There Would Be No Executions.
Death
Would Be
Execution
The Communists Have For Decades Loudly Proclaimed Their Goal Of Destroying The Bourgeois World, While The West Merely Smiled At What Seemed To Be An Extravagant Joke.
War
Goal
World
The Belly Is An Ungrateful Wretch, It Never Remembers Past Favors, It Always Wants More Tomorrow.
Past
Ungrateful
Favors
Human Nature Is Full Of Riddles And Contradictions; Its Very Complexity Engenders Art-and By Art I Mean The Search For Something More Than Simple Linear Formulations, Flat Solutions, Oversimplified Explanations.
Art
Mean
Simple
He Who Knows How To Be Content Will Be Content With Little.
Littles
Know How
Knows
The One Good Thing About Repeating Your Mistakes Is That You Know When To Cringe
Mistake
Good Things
Knows
A Storm Breaks Trees. It Only Bends Grass.
Tree
Storm
Break
Our Envy Of Others Devours Us Most Of All.
Inspirational
Gossip
Envy
A Work Of Art Contains Its Verification In Itself: Artificial, Strained Concepts Do Not Withstand The Test Of Being Turned Into Images; They Fall To Pieces, Turn Out To Be Sickly And Pale, Convince No One. Works Which Draw On Truth And Present It To Us In Live And Concentrated Form Grip Us, Compellingly Involve Us, And No One Ever, Not Even Ages Hence, Will Come Forth To Refute Them.
Art
Fall
Age
... 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.
Spiritual
People
Sake
We Always Pay Dearly For Chasing After What Is Cheap.
Pay
Gulags
Chasing
A Leader Should Not Be A Man Who Arbitrarily Imported His Own Ideas But The Essential Focal Point For A Group Of People Who Trusted One Another And Worked For A Common Aim.
Leadership
Men
Ideas
Man Has Set For Himself The Goal Of Conquering The World But In The Processes Loses His Soul.
Men
Goal
Soul
It Was Only When I Lay There On The Rotting Prison Straw That I Sensed Within Myself The First Stirrings Of Good. Gradually It Was Disclosed To Me That The Line Separating Good And Evil Passes Not Between States Nor Between Social Classes Nor Between Political Parties, But Right Through Every Human Heart, Through All Human Hearts. And That Is Why I Turn Back To The Years Of My Imprisonment And Say, Sometimes To The Astonishment Of Those About Me, Bless You, Prison, For Having Been A Part Of My Life.
Party
Heart
Years
But What Can You Say In A Letter?
Letters
It Would Have Been Difficult To Design A Path Out Of Communism Worse Than The One That Has Been Followed.
Design
Path
Communism
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.
Spiritual
Memories
Heart
Our Government Declared That It Is Conducting Some Kind Of Great Reforms. In Reality, No Real Reforms Were Begun And No One At Any Point Has Declared A Coherent Programme.
Real
Government
Reform
Which Of Us Can Control His Feelings?
Feelings
He Had Drawn Many A Thousand Of These Rations In Prisons And Camps, And Though He'd Never Had An Opportunity To Weight Them On Scales, And Although, Being A Man Of Timid Nature, He Knew No Way Of Standing Up For His Rights, He, Like Every Other Prisoner, Had Discovered Long Ago That Honest Weight Was Never To Be Found In The Bread-cutting. There Was Short Weight In Every Ration. The Only Point Was How Short. So Every Day You Took A Look To Soothe Your Soul - Today, Maybe, They Haven't Snitched Any.
Cutting
Opportunity
Men
A State Of War Only Serves As An Excuse For Domestic Tyranny.
Peace
War
Historical
To Stand Up For Truth Is Nothing. For Truth, You Must Sit In Jail.
Jail
Truth Is
If You Live In A Graveyard, You Can't Weep For Everyone.
Graveyard
Ifs
You Must Understand, The Leading Bolsheviks Who Took Over Russia Were Not Russians. They Hated Russians. They Hated Christians. Driven By Ethnic Hatred They Tortured And Slaughtered Millions Of Russians Without A Shred Of Human Remorse. It Cannot Be Overstated. Bolshevism Committed The Greatest Human Slaughter Of All Time. The Fact That Most Of The World Is Ignorant And Uncaring About This Enormous Crime Is Proof That The Global Media Is In The Hands Of The Perpetrators.
Christian
Hate
Media
One Word Of Truth Outweighs The Whole World.
Honesty
World
Ethics
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.
Views
Always Believe
Courses
The Heart Senses Who Is Friend And Who Is No Friend.
Friends
Heart
No Friends
You Should Rejoice That You're In Prison. Here You Have Time To Think About Your Soul.
Thinking
Soul
Prison
... But It Is Human To Be Outraged By Injustice, Even To The Point Of Courting Destruction!
Injustice
Destruction
Humans
In Our Village, Folks Say God Crumbles Up The Old Moon Into Stars.
Beautiful
Stars
Moon
With Such Global Events Looming Over Us Like Mountains, Nay, Like Entire Mountain Ranges, It May Seem Incongruous And Inappropriate To Recall That The Primary Key To Our Being Or Non-being Resides In Each Individual Human Heart, In The Heart’s Preference For Specific Good Or Evil. Yet This Remains True Even Today, And It Is, In Fact, The Most Reliable Key We Have. The Social Theories That Promised So Much Have Demonstrated Their Bankruptcy, Leaving Us At A Dead End.
Heart
Keys
Mountain Ranges
The Simple Act Of An Ordinary Courageous Man Is Not To Take Part, Not To Support Lies! Let That Come Into The World And Even Reign Over It, But Not Through Me. Writers And Artists Can Do More: They Can Vanquish Lies! ... Lies Can Stand Up Against Much In The World, But Not Against Art.
Art
Lying
Simple
Bless You Prison, Bless You For Being In My Life. For There, Lying Upon The Rotting Prison Straw, I Came To Realize That The Object Of Life Is Not Prosperity As We Are Made To Believe, But The Maturity Of The Human Soul.
Lying
Believe
Maturity
A Great Disaster Had Befallen Russia: Men Have Forgotten God; That's Why All This Has Happened.
Men
Russia
Forgotten
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.
Attitude
Father
Mean
If One Is A Professional Soldier, It Is Part Of One's Job To Die Sooner Or Later.
Jobs
Soldier
Sooner Or Later
Oh, How Hard It Is To Part With Power! This One Has To Understand.
Hard
The Simple Step Of A Courageous Individual Is Not To Take Part In The Lie. "one Word Of Truth Outweighs The World.
Truth
Honesty
Lying
On Our Crowded Planet There Are No Longer Any Internal Affairs!
Environmental
Affair
Planets
The Task Must Be To Banish From Mankind's Thought The Idea That Anybody Has The Right To Use Force Against Righteousness, Against Justice, Against Mutual Agreements.
Agreement
Ideas
Justice
There Is Eternal Simplicity To A Solution Once It Has Been Discovered!
Simplicity
Eternal
Has Beens
History Is Too Slow For Our Life, For Our Hearts.
Heart
History
Art History
I Hope That No One Present Will Suspect Me Of Offering My Personal Criticism Of The Western System To Present Socialism As An Alternative. Having Experienced Applied Socialism In A Country Where The Alternative Has Been Realized, I Certainly Will Not Speak For It. The Well-known Soviet Mathematician Shafarevich, A Member Of The Soviet Academy Of Science, Has Written A Brilliant Book Under The Title Socialism; It Is A Profound Analysis Showing That Socialism Of Any Type And Shade Leads To A Total Destruction Of The Human Spirit And To A Leveling Of Mankind Into Death.
Country
Book
Offering
But Nothing Is All Black In Nature.
Nature
Black
All Black
How Can You Expect A Man Who's Warm To Understand One Who's Cold?
Men
Compassion
Cold
Friends! Let Us Try To Help If We Are Worth Anything At All!
Trying
Helpful
My Friends
But There Are Still People Whose Moral Superiority Defeats Your Own.
People
Moral
Defeat
Why Can't You Understand? The Stars Fall Down Now And Then. The Gaps Have To Be Filled.
Stars
Fall
Gaps
A Poet Cannot Be A Party Member ... Without Paying The Price.
Party
Poetry
Poet
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.
War
Self
Cold
A Horrible Human Toll The Russian Orthodox Church Suffered Throughout Almost The Entire 20th Century. The Church Is Just Rising From Its Knees. Our Young Post-soviet State Is Just Learning To Respect The Church As An Independent Institution.
Independent
Church
Horrible
Scientific Research? Only When Not At The Cost Of Ethics-and First Of All, Those Of The Researchers Themselves.
Cost
Research
Firsts
In Every Life There Is One Particular Event That Is Decisive For The Entire Person-for His Fate, His Convictions, His Passions.
Passion
Fate
Events
Only Those Who Decline To Scramble Up The Career Ladder Are Interesting As Human Beings. Nothing Is More Boring Than A Man With A Career.
Men
Careers
Interesting
Any Man Who Has Once Acclaimed Violence As His Method Must Inexorably Choose Falsehood As His Principle.
Peace
War
Lying
For A Country To Have A Great Writer Is Like Having A Second Government. That Is Why No Regime Has Ever Loved Great Writers, Only Minor Ones.
Love
Country
Government
People Can Live Through Hardship, But From Hard Feelings They Perish.
People
Feelings
Hardship
Satiety Depends Not At All On How Much We Eat, But On How We Eat. It's The Same With Happiness, The Very Same...happiness Doesn't Depend On How Many External Blessings We Have Snatched From Life. It Depends Only On Our Attitude Toward Them. There's A Saying About It In The Taoist Ethic: 'whoever Is Capable Of Contentment Will Always Be Satisfied.
Attitude
Blessing
Contentment
First Would Be The Literary Side, Then The Spiritual And Philosophical. The Political Side Is Required Principally Because Of The Necessity Of The Current Russian Position.
Spiritual
Philosophical
Political
Modern Society Is Hypnotized By Socialism. It Is Prevented By Socialism From Seeing The Mortal Danger It Is In. And One Of The Greatest Dangers Of All Is That You Have Lost All Sense Of Danger, You Cannot Even See Where It's Coming From As It Moves Swiftly Towards You.
Wisdom
Moving
Politics
The Demands Of Internal Growth Are Incomparably More Important To Us...than The Need For Any External Expansion Of Our Power.
Peace
War
Growth
Such As It Is, The Press Has Become The Greatest Power Within The Western World, More Powerful Than The Legislature, The Executive And Judiciary. One Would Like To Ask; By Whom Has It Been Elected And To Whom Is It Responsible?
Powerful
World
Progressive
Only The First Swath Cut By The Scythe Is Difficult.
Cutting
Scythes
Firsts
And The Over-all Fact That You Are A Frail Vessel Full Of Errors.
Errors
Self
Frail
... Scientists Have Made No Clear Effort To Become An Important, Independently Active Force Of Mankind. Whole Congresses At A Time, They Back Away From The Suffering Of Others; It Is More Comfortable To Stay Within The Bounds Of Science.
Science
Suffering Of Others
Effort
Mourn If You Must, But Don't Stop Fighting.
Fighting
Mourning
Mourn
The Next War... May Well Bury Western Civilization Forever.
Peace
War
Civilization
It Takes A Fool To Rush Off To War!
War
Fool
You Get No Thanks From Your Belly-it Always Forgets What You've Just Done For It And Comes Begging Again The Next Day.
Next Day
Done
Thanks
All Classifications In This World Lack Sharp Boundaries, And All Transitions Are Gradual.
Transition
World
Boundaries
The Meaning Of Earthly Existence Lies Not, As We Have Grown Used To Thinking, In Prospering, But In The Development Of The Soul...
Spiritual
Lying
Thinking
Let Us Not Forget That Violence Does Not Live Alone And Is Not Capable Of Living Alone: It Is Necessarily Interwoven With Falsehood. Between Them Lies The Most Intimate, The Deepest Of Natural Bonds. Violence Finds Its Only Refuge In Falsehood, Falsehood Its Only Support In Violence. Any Man Who Has Once Acclaimed Violence As His Method Must Inexorably Choose Falsehood As His Principle.
Lying
Men
Support
Even The Most Broad-minded Of Us Can Embrace Only That Part Of Truth Into Which Our Own Snout Has Blundered.
Truth
Embrace
Broads
Surrender One Hair, And You'll End Up Beardless.
Hair
Surrender
Ends
In Military Science There Is A Principle More Important Than "forward": It Is That The Task Should Be Proportionate To The Means.
Military
Mean
Important
Was It Gorky Who Had Said, "if Your Children Are No Better Than You Are, You Have Fathered Them In Vain, Indeed You Have Lived In Vain".
Children
Parenting
Vain
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
Yield
Essentials
Would Be
[he] Understood The People In A New Way...the People Is Not Everyone Who Speaks Our Language, Nor Yet The Elect Marked By The Fiery Stamp Of Genius. Not By Birth, Not By The Work Of One's Hands, Not By The Wings Of Education Is One Elected Into The People. But By One's Inner Self. Everyone Forges His Inner Self Year After Year. One Must Try To Temper, To Cut, To Polish One's Soul So As To Become A Human Being. And Thereby Become A Tiny Particle Of One's Own People.
Cutting
Self
Hands
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.
Dark
Clouds
Years
There Is No Point Asserting And Reasserting What The Heart Cannot Believe.
Believe
Heart
No Point
I Am Deeply Convinced That God Is Present Both In The Lives Of Every Person And Also In The Lives Of Entire Nations.
Persons
Nations
Convinced
European Democracy Was Originally Imbued With A Sense Of Christian Responsibility And Self-discipline, But These Spiritual Principles Have Been Gradually Losing Their Force. Spiritual Independence Is Being Pressured On All Sides By The Dictatorship Of Self-satisfied Vulgarity, Of The Latest Fads, And Of Group Interests.
Christian
Spiritual
Responsibility
The Name Of 'reform' Simply Covers What Is Latently A Process Of The Theft Of The National Heritage.
Names
Reform
Heritage
Freedom Or Prison--what's The Difference? A Man Must Develop Unwavering Will Power Subject Only To His Reason.
Men
Differences
Prison
What A Force Is Laughter.
Laughter
Force
Submissiveness To Fate, The Total Abdication Of Your Own Will In The Shaping Of Your Life, The Recognition That It Was Impossible To Guess The Best And The Worst Ahead Of Time But That It Was Easy To Take A Step You Would Reproach Yourself For-all This Freed The Prisoner From Any Bondage, Made Him Calmer, And Even Ennobled Him.
Fate
Abdication
Steps
As For Europe, Its Claims Towards Russia Are Fairly Transparently Based On Fears About Energy, Unjustified Fears At That.
Russia
Europe
Energy
Own Only What You Can Always Carry With You: Know Languages, Know Countries, Know People. Let Your Memory Be Your Travel Bag. Use Your Memory! Use Your Memory! It Is Those Bitter Seeds Alone Which Might Sprout And Grow Someday. Look Around You - There Are People Around You. Maybe You Will Remember One Of Them All Your Life And Later Eat Your Heart Out Because You Didn't Make Use Of The Opportunity To Ask Him Questions. And The Less You Talk, The More You'll Hear.
Country
Memories
Heart
The "october Revolution" Is A Myth Generated By The Winners, The Bolsheviks, And Swallowed Whole By Progressive Circles In The West.
Circles
October Revolution
West
Any Man Who Has Once Proclaimed Violence As His Method Is Inevitably Forced To Take The Lie As His Principle.
Peace
War
Lying
Justice Is Conscience, Not A Personal Conscience But The Conscience Of The Whole Of Humanity. Those Who Clearly Recognize The Voice Of Their Own Conscience Usually Recognize Also The Voice Of Justice.
Religious
Peace
Voice
Unlimited Power In The Hands Of Limited People Always Leads To Cruelty.
Hands
People
Unlimited
The Strength Or Weakness Of A Society Depends More On The Level Of Its Spiritual Life Than On Its Level Of Industrialization. Neither A Market Economy Nor Even General Abundance Constitutes The Crowning Achievement Of Human Life. If A Nation's Spiritual Energies Have Been Exhausted, It Will Not Be Saved From Collapse By The Most Perfect Government Structure Or By Any Industrial Development. A Tree With A Rotten Core Cannot Stand.
Spiritual
Government
Perfect
I Refuse To See Literature As Amusement, As A Game. I Think That You Ought Not To Approach Literature Without A Moral Responsibility For Every Word You Write.
Writing
Responsibility
Thinking
Human Beings Are Better And Lazier Than Their Rules And Instructions.
Human Nature
Instruction
Humans
Whenever The Tissue Of Life Is Woven Of Legalistic Relationships, This Creates An Atmosphere Of Spiritual Mediocrity That Paralyzes A Person's Noblest Impulses.
Spiritual
Atmosphere
Woven
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.
Life
Courage
Power
To Reject This Inhuman Communist Ideology Is Simply To Be A Human Being. Such A Rejection Is More Than A Political Act. It Is A Protest Of Our Souls Against Those Who Would Have Us Forget The Concepts Of Good And Evil.
War
Evil
Rejection
The One And Only Substitute For Experience Which We Have Not Ourselves Had Is Art, Literature. We Have Been Given A Miraculous Faculty: Despite The Differences Of Language, Customs And Social Structure We Are Able To Communicate Life Experience From One Whole Nation To Another, To Communicate A Difficult National Experience Many Decades Long Which The Second Of The Two Has Never Experienced.
Art
Differences
Two
Communism Will Never Be Halted By Negotiations Or Through The Machinations Of Detente. It Can Only Be Halted By Force From Without Or By Disintegration From Within.
War
Cold
Communism
Not All Of Me Shall Die.
Death
Dies
A Whole Week, A Single Campaign, A Month, A Week, Even A Day Was Far More Than Enough To Cut A Company Or Platoon To Ribbons Or Cripple A Man For Life: It Needed Only A Quarter Of An Hour.
War
Cutting
Men
We Have Ourselves To Save.
Survival
The Salvation Of Mankind Lies Only In Making Everything The Concern Of All.
Lying
Responsibility
Humanity
Human Beings Yield In Many Situations, Even Important And Spiritual And Central Ones, As Long As It Prolongs One's Well-being.
Spiritual
Yield
Long
When You're Young, You Haven't The Experience, When You're Old You Haven't The Strength.
Aging
Young
Old You
A Decline In Courage May Be The Most Striking Feature That An Outside Observer Notices In The West Today. The Western World Has Lost Its Civic Courage . . . . Such A Decline In Courage Is Particularly Noticeable Among The Ruling And Intellectual Elite, Causing An Impression Of A Loss Of Courage By The Entire Society.
Loss
Intellectual
World
... Some Kind Of Clean, Pure Feeling Does Live Within Us, Existing Apart From All Our Convictions.
Feelings
Doe
Spirit
Truth Seldom Is Pleasant; It Is Almost Invariably Bitter.
Bitter
Pleasant
The Universe Has As Many Different Centers As There Are Living Beings In It.
Society
Different
Universe
The Less You Speak, The More You Will Hear.
People
Speak
Introvert
There Is A Law Of Time, A Law Of Oblivion: Glory To The Dead; Life To The Living.
Time
Law
Oblivion
On The Way From The Renaissance To Our Days We Have Enriched Our Experience, But We Have Lost The Concept Of A Supreme Complete Entity Which Used To Restrain Our Passions And Our Irresponsibility. We Have Placed Too Much Hope In Political And Social Reforms, Only To Find Out That We Were Being Deprived Of Our Most Precious Possession: Our Spiritual Life. In The East, It Is Destroyed By The Dealings And Machinations Of The Ruling Party. In The West, Commercial Interests Tend To Suffocate It. This Is The Real Crisis.
Spiritual
Atheist
Real
I Think The Gap Between Rich And Poor Is An Extremely Dangerous Phenomenon And Needs The Immediate Attention Of The State.
Thinking
Needs
Attention
It's An Universal Law-- Intolerance Is The First Sign Of An Inadequate Education. An Ill-educated Person Behaves With Arrogant Impatience, Whereas Truly Profound Education Breeds Humility.
Humility
Law
Profound
If Decade After Decade The Truth Cannot Be Told, Each Person's Mind Begins To Roam Irretrievably. One's Fellow Countrymen Become Harder To Understand Than Martians.
Mind
Harder
Persons
Nothing Worthy Can Be Built On A Neglect Of Higher Meanings And On A Relativistic View Of Concepts And Culture As A Whole. Indeed, Something Greater Than A Phenomenon Confined To Art Can Be Discerned Shimmering Here Beneath The Surface - Shimmering Not With Light But With An Ominous Crimson Glow.
Art
Light
Views
The Thoughts Of A Prisoner - They're Not Free Either. They Keep Returning To The Same Things.
Prison
Prisoner
I Am A Convinced And Consistent Critic Of Party-parliamentarism. I Am For Non-partisan Elections Of True People's Representatives Who Are Accountable To Their Regions And Districts; And Who In Case Of Unsatisfactory Work Can Be Recalled. I Do Understand And Respect The Formation Of Groups On Economical, Cooperative, Territorial, Educational, Professional And Industrial Principles, But I See Nothing Organic In Political Parties. Politically Motivated Ties Can Be Unstable And Quite Often They Have Selfish Ulterior Motives.
Selfish
Educational
Party
A Great Number Of Publications And Movies On The History Of The 20th Century - Albeit Of Uneven Quality - Are Evidence Of A Growing Demand. Quite Recently, The State-owned Tv Channel 'russia' Aired A Series Based On Varlam Shalamov's Works, Showing The Terrible, Cruel Truth About Stalin's Camps. It Was Not Watered Down.
Quality
Terrible
Evidence
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.
Fundamentals
Literature
Significant
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.
Lying
Responsibility
Writing
For Us In Russia, Communism Is A Dead Dog, While, For Many People In The West, It Is Still A Living Lion.
Dog
Russia
People
... That Maxim Of Descartes: "question Everything!" Question Everything!
Doubt
Maxims
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.
Memories
People
Shining
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.
Memories
Freedom
Heart
A Hard Life Improves The Vision.
Vision
Hard Life
Hardship
There Also Exists Another Alliance - At First Glance A Strange One, A Surprising One - But If You Think About It, In Fact, One Which Is Well Grounded And Easy To Understand. This Is The Alliance Between Our Communist Leaders And Your Capitalists. This Alliance Is Not New. ... We Observe Continuous And Steady Support By The Businessmen Of The West Of The Soviet Communist Leaders.
Thinking
Communist Leaders
Support
We Should Clearly Understand That Only The Voluntary And Conscientious Acceptance By A People Of Its Guilt Can Ensure The Healing Of A Nation. Unremitting Reproaches From Outside Are Counterproductive.
Healing
Acceptance
People
It Makes Me Happier, More Secure, To Think That I Do Not Have To Plan And Manage Everything For Myself, That I Am Only A Sword Made Sharp To Smite The Unclean Forces, An Enchanted Sword To Cleave And Disperse Them. Grant, O Lord, That I May Not Break As I Strike! Let Me Not Fall From Thy Hand!
Fall
Thinking
Hands
We Have To Condemn Publicly The Very Idea That Some People Have The Right To Repress Others... When We Neither Punish Nor Reproach Evildoers ... We Are Ripping The Foundations Of Justice From Beneath New Generations.
Ideas
People
Justice
A Human Being Is All Hope And Impatience.
Impatience
Humans
Human Beings
It Is The Artist Who Realizes That There Is A Supreme Force Above Him And Works Gladly Away As A Small Apprentice Under God's Heaven.
Artist
Heaven
Realizing
Do Not Pursue What Is Illusory - Property And Position: All That Is Gained At The Expense Of Your Nerves Decade After Decade, And Is Confiscated In One Fell Night. Live With A Steady Superiority Over Life - Don't Be Afraid Of Misfortune, And Do Not Yearn After Happiness; It Is, After All, All The Same: The Bitter Doesn't Last Forever, And The Sweet Never Fills The Cup To Overflowing.
Inspirational
Sweet
Night
Human Nature, If It Changes At All, Changes Not Much Faster Than The Geological Face Of The Earth.
Earth
Faces
Human Nature
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.
Wisdom
Justice
Triumph
To Coexist With Communism On The Same Planet Is Impossible. Either It Will Spread, Cancer-like, To Destroy Mankind, Or Else Mankind Will Have To Rid Itself Of Communism (and Even Then Face Lengthy Treatment For Secondary Tumors).
War
Cancer
Faces
What Is The Most Precious Thing In The World? I See Now That It Is The Knowledge That You Have No Part In Injustice. Injustice Is Stronger Than You, It Always Was And Always Will Be, But Let It Not Be Done Through You.
Stronger
Done
World
When Russia Started To Regain Some Of Its Strength As An Economy And As A State, The West's Reaction - Perhaps A Subconscious One, Based On Erstwhile Fears - Was Panic.
Russia
Panic
West
Good Or Evil-you Cannot Build Your Life Apart From This Distinction.
Evil
Distinction
A Man Is Happy So Long As He Chooses To Be Happy And Nothing Can Stop Him.
Happiness
Being Happy
Attitude
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.
Dog
Voice
Long
Only A Magician Can Fix A Head On A Body, But Any Fool Can Lop It Off.
War
Fool
Body
One Drop Of Truth Can Outweigh An Ocean Of Lies
Lying
Ocean
When The Whole Discussion Of "developing A National Idea" Hastily Began In Post-soviet Russia, I Tried To Pour Cold Water On It With The Objection That, After All The Devastating Losses We Had Experienced, It Would Be Quite Sufficient To Have Just One Task: The Preservation Of A Dying People.
Loss
Ideas
Russia
... A Man Can Safely Sacrifice A Great Deal As Long As He Clings To The Essential.
Sacrifice
Men
Long
If It Goes Well With You, Then All Is Well.
Wells
Ifs
Once The Fight Is On-strike Quickly And Often.
Fighting
Strikes
A Meek Fellow ... Is A Real Godsend In Any Gang.
Real
Gang
Meek
To Destroy A People, You Must First Sever Their Roots.
Education
Roots
People
At What Point, Then, Should One Resist? When One's Belt Is Taken Away? When One Is Ordered To Face Into A Corner? When One Crosses The Threshold Of One's Home? An Arrest Consists Of A Series Of Incidental Irrelevancies, Of A Multitude Of Things That Do Not Matter, And There Seems No Point In Arguing About One Of Them Individually...and Yet All These Incidental Irrelevancies Taken Together Implacably Constitute The Arrest.
Taken
Home
Together
We Are All Human, And Our Senses Are Quicker To Prompt Us Than Our Reason. Every Man Gives Off A Scent, And That Scent Tells You How To Act Before Your Head Does.
Men
Giving
Doe
Human Rights' Are A Fine Thing, But How Can We Make Ourselves Sure That Our Rights Do Not Expand At The Expense Of The Rights Of Others. A Society With Unlimited Rights Is Incapable Of Standing To Adversity. If We Do Not Wish To Be Ruled By A Coercive Authority, Then Each Of Us Must Rein Himself In...a Stable Society Is Achieved Not By Balancing Opposing Forces But By Conscious Self-limitation: By The Principle That We Are Always Duty-bound To Defer To The Sense Of Moral Justice.
Adversity
Rights
Self
Justness Exists, Even If Few People Exist Who Feel It.
People
Feels
Ifs
Prayers Are Like Those Appeals Of Ours. Either They Don't Get Through Or They're Returned With 'rejected' Scrawled Across 'em.
Prayer
Ems
Appeals
If I Were Asked Today To Formulate As Concisely As Possible What Was The Main Cause Of The Ruinous Revolution That Swallowed Up Some 60 Million Of Our People, I Could Not Put It More Accurately Than To Repeat: 'men Had Forgotten God; That Is Why All This Has Happened.'
Men
People
Today
We Will Die, But Art Will Remain.
Art
Dies
There Is Something Predetermined In The Mutual Attraction Between Germany And Russia. Otherwise, This Attraction Would Not Have Survived Two Ghastly World Wars.
War
Russia
Mutual Attraction
Vladimir Putin Inherited A Ransacked And Bewildered Country, With A Poor And Demoralized People. And He Started To Do What Was Possible - A Slow And Gradual Restoration. These Efforts Were Not Noticed, Nor Appreciated, Immediately. In Any Case, One Is Hard Pressed To Find Examples In History When Steps By One Country To Restore Its Strength Were Met Favorably By Other Governments.
Country
People
Effort
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