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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".
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Topic
Children
Parenting
Vain
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When You're Young, You Haven't The Experience, When You're Old You Haven't The Strength.
Aging
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A Man Used To Riding In A Car Cannot Understand A Pedestrian.
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A Forest Doesn't Weep Over One Tree.
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Unlimited Power In The Hands Of Limited People Always Leads To Cruelty.
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... Some Kind Of Clean, Pure Feeling Does Live Within Us, Existing Apart From All Our Convictions.
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If You Want To Change The World, Who Do You Begin With, Yourself Or Others? I Believe If We Begin With Ourselves And Do The Things That We Need To Do And Become The Best Person We Can Be, We Have A Much Better Chance Of Changing The World For The Better.
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The Generation Now Coming Out Of Western Schools Is Unable To Distinguish Good From Bad. Even Those Words Are Unacceptable. This Results In Impaired Thinking Ability.
Wisdom
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How Quickly A Zek (a Prisoner) Gets Cheeky-or, Putting It In Literary Language, How Quickly A Man's Requirements Grow.
Men
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Evil People Always Support Each Other; That Is Their Chief Strength.
Evil People
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We Have To Condemn The Very Idea That Some People Have The Right To Repress Others.
Ideas
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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.
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In Military Science There Is A Principle More Important Than "forward": It Is That The Task Should Be Proportionate To The Means.
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Economic Growth Is Not Only Unncessary, But Ruinous.
Growth
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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.
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Offering
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.
Elude Us
Knowing
Attention
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
Voting For Impersonal Parties And Their Programmes Is A False Substitute For The Only True Way To Elect People's Representatives: Voting By An Actual Person For An Actual Candidate.
Party
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I Have Spent All My Life Under A Communist Regime, And I Will Tell You That A Society Without Any Objective Legal Scale Is A Terrible One Indeed. But A Society With No Other Scale But The Legal One Is Not Quite Worthy Of Man Either.
Life
Men
Law
It Was Wrong To Be Too Pragmatic, To Judge People Solely By Results; It Was More Humane To Judge By Intentions.
People
Judging
Judgment
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
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Thus, Literature, Together With Language, Preserves And Protects A Nation's Soul.
Soul
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Hastiness And Superficiality Are The Psychic Diseases Of The 20th Century, And More Than Anywhere Else This Disease Is Reflected In The Press.
Health
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Disease
And Keep As Few Things As Possible, So That You Don't Have To Fear For Them. Give Them Up Without A Struggle-because Otherwise The Humiliation Will Poison Your Heart. They Will Take Them Away From You In A Fight, And Trying To Hold Onto Your Property Will Only Leave You With A Bloodied Mouth ... But By Owning Things And Trembling About Their Fate Aren't You Forfeiting The Rare Opportunity Of Observing And Understanding?
Struggle
Heart
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I Think The Gap Between Rich And Poor Is An Extremely Dangerous Phenomenon And Needs The Immediate Attention Of The State.
Thinking
Needs
Attention
The One Who Doesn't Pull His Weight Is Not Asked To Pull, While The One Who Does, Pulls For Two.
Work
Two
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Work Is What Horses Die Of
Horse
Dies
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
To Do Evil A Human Being Must First Of All Believe That What He's Doing Is Good... Ideology - That Is What Gives Devildoing Its Long-sought Justification And Gives The Evildoer The Necessary Steadfastness And Determination. That Is The Social Theory Which Helps To Make His Acts Seem Good Instead Of Bad In His Own And Others' Eyes, So That He Won't Hear Reproaches And Curses But Will Receive Praise And Honors.
Determination
Believe
Eye
Scientific Research? Only When Not At The Cost Of Ethics-and First Of All, Those Of The Researchers Themselves.
Cost
Research
Firsts
No One Can Bar The Road To Truth, And To Advance Its Cause I Am Prepared To Accept Even Death.
Truth
Bars
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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.
Trying
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Building
But What Can You Say In A Letter?
Letters
Nothing Is More Boring Than A Man With A Career.
Men
Careers
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A Storm Breaks Trees. It Only Bends Grass.
Tree
Storm
Break
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
The Most Intense Patriotism Always Flourishes In The Rear.
Intense
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
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 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
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
We Always Pay Dearly For Chasing After What Is Cheap.
Pay
Gulags
Chasing
A Meek Fellow ... Is A Real Godsend In Any Gang.
Real
Gang
Meek
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.
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Slugs
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
Surely People Should Eventually Cease To Be Surprised At Anything? And Yet They Continue To Be.
People
Should
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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
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
Let All Of Us Who Shared The Prison Soup Meet Again In Better Times!
Soup
Prison
If Someone Asked You, Why Not Help Him Out?
Why Not
Helping
Ifs
... 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
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
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
Our Envy Of Others Devours Us Most Of All.
Inspirational
Gossip
Envy
What A Force Is Laughter.
Laughter
Force
Beat A Dog Once And You Only Have To Show Him The Whip.
Dog
Beats
Shows
... We Brush Aside All Scales Not Our Own, As If They Were Follies Or Delusions.
Judgment
Scales
Brushes
There Is A Law Of Time, A Law Of Oblivion: Glory To The Dead; Life To The Living.
Time
Law
Oblivion
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
All Classifications In This World Lack Sharp Boundaries, And All Transitions Are Gradual.
Transition
World
Boundaries
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
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
I Was Always Optimistic. And I Held To And Was Guided By My Views.
Optimistic
Views
The Revolution Is An Amalgam Of Former Party Functionaries, Quasi- Democrats, Kgb Officers, And Black-market Wheeler-dealers, Who Are Standing In Power Now And Have Represented A Dirty Hybrid Unseen In World History
Party
Dirty
Kgb
The One Good Thing About Repeating Your Mistakes Is That You Know When To Cringe
Mistake
Good Things
Knows
It Is In The Nature Of The Human Being To Seek A Justification For His Actions.
Moon
Salmon
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On Our Crowded Planet There Are No Longer Any Internal Affairs!
Environmental
Affair
Planets
But There Are Still People Whose Moral Superiority Defeats Your Own.
People
Moral
Defeat
One Can Build The Empire State Building, Discipline The Prussian Army, Make A State Hierarchy Mightier Than God, Yet Fail To Overcome The Unaccountable Superiority Of Certain Human Beings.
Army
Greatness
Discipline
It Is A Brave Man Who Is The First To Sit Down During A Standing Ovation.
Men
Brave
Ovation
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
When You're Cold, Don't Expect Sympathy From Someone Who's Warm.
Cold
Warm
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
People Can Live Through Hardship, But From Hard Feelings They Perish.
People
Feelings
Hardship
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
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
Only An Extraordinary Person Can Turn Opportunity Into Reality.
Opportunity
Reality
Extraordinary Person
If One Is Forever Cautious, Can One Remain A Human Being?
Gambling
Forever
Action
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.
Thinking
Feet
Mud
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
We Didn't Love Freedom Enough.
Enough
Love Freedom
People Who Are At Ease With Their Consciences Always Look Happy.
People
Looks
Ease
Socialism Of Any Type Leads To A Total Destruction Of The Human Spirit...
Spirit
Socialism
Destruction
To Do Evil A Human Being Must First Of All Believe That What He's Doing Is Good.
Integrity
Believe
Evil
Justness Exists, Even If Few People Exist Who Feel It.
People
Feels
Ifs
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 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
Any Man Who Has Once Proclaimed Violence As His Method Is Inevitably Forced To Take The Lie As His Principle.
Peace
War
Lying
The Sole Substitute For An Experience Which We Have Not Ourselves Lived Through Is Art And Literature.
Art
Literature
Substitutes
As The Old Proverb Says: "well-fed Horses Don't Rampage.
Horse
Rampage
Feds
I Had Grown Up Among Engineers, And I Could Remember The Engineers Of The Twenties Very Well Indeed: Their Open, Shining Intellects, Their Free And Gentle Humor, Their Agility And Breadth Of Thought, The Ease With Which They Shifted From One Engineering Field To Another, And, For That Matter, From Technology To Social Concerns And Art. Then, Too, They Personified Good Manners And Delicacy Of Taste; Well-bred Speech That Flowed Evenly And Was Free Of Uncultured Words; One Of Them Might Play A Musical Instrument, Another Dabble In Painting; And Their Faces Always Bore A Spiritual Imprint.
Spiritual
Art
Technology
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
The Term "national Idea" Is An Unclear One. One Might Think Of It As A Widely Shared Understanding Among A People As To The Desired Way Of Life In Their Country, An Idea That Holds Sway Over The Population. A Unifying Concept Like That Can Be Useful, But Should Never Be Created Artificially Or Imposed Top-down By The Powers-that-be.
Country
Thinking
Top Down
I Cannot Suggest Political Ways Out, That Is The Task Of Politicians, So It Is Simply That Those Who Accuse Me Of This Do Not Know How To Read.
Political
Tasks
Way
Which Of Us Can Control His Feelings?
Feelings
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
The Next War... May Well Bury Western Civilization Forever.
Peace
War
Civilization
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
Not Everything Has A Name. Some Things Lead Us Into A Realm Beyond Words.
Art
Artist
Names
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
It Is Almost Always Impossible To Evaluate At The Time Events Which You Have Already Experienced, And To Understand Their Meaning With The Guidance Of Their Effects. All The More Unpredictable And Surprising To Us Will Be The Course Of Future Events.
Events
Impossible
Guidance
... That Maxim Of Descartes: "question Everything!" Question Everything!
Doubt
Maxims
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
Human Beings Are Better And Lazier Than Their Rules And Instructions.
Human Nature
Instruction
Humans
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
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
Every Man Always Has Handy A Dozen Glib Little Reasons Why He Is Right Not To Sacrifice Himself.
Sacrifice
Men
Dozen
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
A Strong Man Never Loses His Head In Defeat Or Despondency.
Strength
Strong
Men
The Salvation Of Mankind Lies Only In Making Everything The Concern Of All.
Lying
Responsibility
Humanity
The Demands Of Internal Growth Are Incomparably More Important To Us...than The Need For Any External Expansion Of Our Power.
Peace
War
Growth
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
In Our Country The Lie Has Become Not Just A Moral Category But A Pillar Of The State.
Country
Lying
Pillars
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
Why Can't You Understand? The Stars Fall Down Now And Then. The Gaps Have To Be Filled.
Stars
Fall
Gaps
To Stand Up For Truth Is Nothing. For Truth, You Must Sit In Jail.
Jail
Truth Is
When I Returned To Russia In 1994, The Western World And Its States Were Practically Being Worshipped. Admittedly, This Was Caused Not So Much By Real Knowledge Or A Conscious Choice, But By The Natural Disgust With The Bolshevik Regime And Its Anti-western Propaganda.
Real
Russia
Choices
Not All Of Me Shall Die.
Death
Dies
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
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
For Me Faith Is The Foundation And Support Of One's Life.
Support
Foundation
We Have Arrived At An Intellectual Chaos.
Intellectual
Chaos
To Destroy A People, You Must First Sever Their Roots.
Education
Roots
People
Violence Can Only Be Concealed By A Lie, And The Lie Can Only Be Maintained By Violence.
Peace
War
Lying
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
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
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
Not Death Itself, But Only The Moral Preparation For It, Holds Terrors.
Death
Preparation
Moral
[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
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
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
Just As King Midas Turned Everything To Gold, Stalin Turned Everything To Mediocrity.
Kings
Gold
Mediocrity
The Thoughts Of A Prisoner - They're Not Free Either. They Keep Returning To The Same Things.
Prison
Prisoner
The Fewer Limitations The Artist Imposes On His Work, The Less Chance He Has For Artistic Success.
Artist
Chance
Fewer
Here Again We Witness The Single Outcome Of A Worldwide Process, With East And West Yielding The Same Results, And Once Again For The Same Reason: Men Have Forgotten God.
Men
Evil
East
You Know The Words From The Bible: 'build Not On Sand, But On Rock....' Tyrant Leaders Respect Only Firmness...and Laugh At Persons Who Give In To Them.
War
Rocks
Tyrants
As For Europe, Its Claims Towards Russia Are Fairly Transparently Based On Fears About Energy, Unjustified Fears At That.
Russia
Europe
Energy
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
Gradually It Was Disclosed To Me That The Line Separating Good And Evil Passes Not Through States, Nor Between Classes, Nor Between Political Parties Either - But Right Through Every Human Heart...
Party
Heart
Class
Every Human Act Can Be Disguised With A Coating Of Gilt.
Behavior
Humans
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
Society Must Cease To Look Upon 'progress' As Something Desirable. 'eternal Progress' Is A Nonsensical Myth. What Must Be Implemented Is Not A 'steadily Expanding Economy', But A Zero Growth Economy, A Stable Economy. Economic Growth Is Not Only Unnecessary But Ruinous.
Zero
Growth
Progress
The Central Government Possesses No Plan Of Finding The Way Out Of This Blind Alley.
Government
Way
Blind
Even The Most Broad-minded Of Us Can Embrace Only That Part Of Truth Into Which Our Own Snout Has Blundered.
Truth
Embrace
Broads
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
If You Live In A Graveyard, You Can't Weep For Everyone.
Graveyard
Ifs
Even The Most Rational Approach To Ethics Is Defenseless If There Isn't The Will To Do What Is Right.
Ethics And Morals
Morality
Moral Ethics
History Is Too Slow For Our Life, For Our Hearts.
Heart
History
Art History
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
It Takes A Fool To Rush Off To War!
War
Fool
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
For A Country To Have A Great Writer Is To Have Another Government.
Country
Government
Great Writers
Art Thaws Even The Frozen, Darkened Soul, Opening It To Lofty Spiritual Experience.
Spiritual
Art
Soul
Lord, Give Me The Strength To Accomplish What You've Given Me To Do And The Faith To Trust You That What I Haven't Been Able To Accomplish You've Already Assigned To Someone Else.
Giving
Able
Give Me Strength
Sometimes I Feel Quite Distinctly That What Is Inside Me Is Not All Of Me. There Is Something Else, Sublime, Quite Indestructible, Some Tiny Fragment Of The Universal Spirit.don't You Feel That?
Sublime
Tiny
Spirit
There Is Eternal Simplicity To A Solution Once It Has Been Discovered!
Simplicity
Eternal
Has Beens
Boris Yeltsin's Period Was Characterized By A No Less Irresponsible Attitude To People's Lives, But In Other Ways. In His Haste To Have Private Rather Than State Ownership As Quickly As Possible, Yeltsin Started A Mass, Multi-billion-dollar Fire Sale Of The National Patrimony. Wanting To Gain The Support Of Regional Leaders, Yeltsin Called Directly For Separatism And Passed Laws That Encouraged And Empowered The Collapse Of The Russian State. This Deprived Russia Of Its Historical Role For Which It Had Worked So Hard, And Lowered Its Standing In The International Community.
Attitude
Support
Community
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.
Education
Hygiene
Forever
Your Friend Will Argue With You.
Friendship
Arguing
Everyone Is Guilty Of Something Or Has Something To Conceal. All One Has To Do Is Look Hard Enough To Find What It Is.
Looks
Guilty
Enough
We Never Know Beforehand How New Posts Or New Work Will Change Us.
Change
New Work
Posts
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
One Cannot Declare That Only His Faith Is Correct And All Other Faiths Are Not. God Is Endlessly Multi-dimensional So Every Religion That Exists On Earth Represents Some Face, Some Side Of God. One Must Not Have Any Negative Attitude To Any Religion But Nonetheless The Depth Of Understanding God And The Depth Of Applying God's Commandments Is Different In Different Religions.
Attitude
Understanding God
Depth
The Essence Of Life Will Never Be Captured By Even The Greatest Of Formulas.
Life
Essence
Formulas
Someone That You Have Deprived Of Everything Is No Longer In Your Power. He Is Once Again Entirely Free.
Power
Deprived
Power Is A Poison Well Known For Thousands Of Years. If Only No One Were Ever To Acquire Material Power Over Others! But To The Human Being Who Has Faith In Some Force That Holds Dominion Over All Of Us, And Who Is Therefore Conscious Of His Own Limitations, Power Is Not Necessarily Fatal. For Those, However, Who Are Unaware Of Any Higher Sphere, It Is A Deadly Poison. For Them There Is No Antidote.
Years
Have Faith
Dominion
I Would Rather Have The United States As The World's Policeman Than The Soviet Union As The World's Jailer.
War
United States
World
When I Was In The Gulag I Would Sometimes Even Write On Stone Walls. I Used To Write On Scraps Of Paper, Then I Memorised The Contents And Destroyed The Scraps.
Wall
Writing
Paper
A Man Is Happy So Long As He Chooses To Be Happy And Nothing Can Stop Him.
Happiness
Being Happy
Attitude
...skepticism Can Never Provide Firm Ground Under A Man's Feet. And Perhaps, After All, We Need Firm Ground.
Men
Feet
Needs
In Our Village, Folks Say God Crumbles Up The Old Moon Into Stars.
Beautiful
Stars
Moon
The One Who Pulls Is The One They Urge On.
Urges
Willingness
The Same Old Caveman Feeling-greed, Envy, Violence, And Mutual Hate, Which Along The Way Assumed Respectable Pseudonyms Like Class Struggle, Racial Struggle, Mass Struggle, Labor-union Struggle-are Tearing Our World To Pieces.
Hate
Struggle
Our World
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
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
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
Let Your Memory Be Your Travel Bag.
Travel
Memories
Next Adventure
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
It Is Unthinkable In The Twentieth Century To Fail To Distinguish Between What Constitutes An Abominable Atrocity That Must Be Prosecuted And What Constitutes That "past" Which "ought Not To Be Stirred Up.
Past
Atrocities
Failing
One World, One Mankind Cannot Exist In The Face Of Six, Four Or Even Two Scales Of Values: We Shall Be Torn Apart By This Disparity Of Rhythm, This Disparity Of Vibrations.
Wisdom
Two
Torn Apart
Cracks Make Caves Collapse.
Caves
Cracks
Trifles
I Leaf Through The Ancient Philosophers And Find My Newest Discoveries There.
Discovery
Philosopher
Ancient
And The Over-all Fact That You Are A Frail Vessel Full Of Errors.
Errors
Self
Frail
The Battleline Between Good And Evil Runs Through The Heart Of Every Man.
Running
Heart
Men
Of Course God Is Endlessly Multi-dimensional So Every Religion That Exists On Earth Represents Some Face, Some Side Of God.
Religion
Earth
Faces
One Should Never Direct People Towards Happiness, Because Happiness Too Is An Idol Of The Market-place. One Should Direct Them Towards Mutual Affection. A Beast Gnawing At Its Prey Can Be Happy Too, But Only Human Beings Can Feel Affection For Each Other, And This Is The Highest Achievement They Can Aspire To.
Love
People
Achievement
The Secret Is That When You've Been Pitched Head First Into Hell You Just Write About It
Writing
Secret
Firsts
But Nothing Is All Black In Nature.
Nature
Black
All Black
I Have Grown Used To The Fact That Public Repentance Is The Most Unacceptable Option For The Modern Politician.
Facts
Politician
Modern
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 Universe Has As Many Different Centers As There Are Living Beings In It.
Society
Different
Universe
What Is An Optimist? The Man Who Says, "it's Worse Everywhere Else. We're Better Off Than The Rest Of The World. We've Been Lucky." He Is Happy With Things As They Are And He Doesn't Torment Himself. What Is A Pessimist? The Man Who Says, "things Are Fine Everywhere But Here. Everyone Else Is Better Off Than We Are. We're The Only Ones Who've Had A Bad Break." He Torments Himself Continually.
Men
Lucky
World
Good Or Evil-you Cannot Build Your Life Apart From This Distinction.
Evil
Distinction
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
Like A Bicycle, Like A Wheel That, Once Rolling, Is Stable Only So Long As It Keeps Moving But Falls When Its Momentum Stops, So The Game Between A Man And Woman, Once Begun, Can Exist Only So Long As It Progresses. If The Forward Movement Today Is No More Than It Was Yesterday, The Game Is Over.
Moving
Fall
Men
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
There Are A Lot Of Clear Thinkers Everywhere.
Thinker
Clear
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
Who Will Dare Say He Has Defined Art?
Art
Dare
Defined
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
Understanding Quotes: Their Essence and Application

Quotes, or quotations, are powerful tools in communication, encapsulating ideas, emotions, and wisdom in concise expressions. They serve various purposes across different contexts, from academic writing to everyday conversation.

1. Defining Quotes

A quote is a repetition of someone else's statement or thoughts. It can be a direct replication of words spoken or written by another individual, often used to support arguments, provide evidence, or convey profound insights.


2. The Importance of Quotes

2.1. Enhancing Credibility

Incorporating quotes from authoritative sources can bolster the credibility of your work. By referencing experts or primary sources, you demonstrate thorough research and a solid foundation for your arguments.


2.2. Providing Evidence

Quotes serve as concrete evidence to support claims. In academic and professional writing, they validate points made, offering readers a basis to trust the information presented.


2.3. Conveying Emotions and Perspectives

Quotes can encapsulate emotions and perspectives succinctly. They allow writers to express complex feelings or viewpoints through the words of others, often more eloquently than paraphrasing.


3. Types of Quotes

3.1. Direct Quotes

Direct quotes involve copying the exact words from a source, enclosed in quotation marks. They are used when the original wording is significant or particularly well-expressed.


3.2. Indirect Quotes (Paraphrasing)

Indirect quotes restate the original message in your own words. While not enclosed in quotation marks, they still require proper attribution to the original source.


3.3. Block Quotes

Block quotes are lengthy direct quotations, formatted as a separate block of text. They are typically used for quotes exceeding a certain length, varying by citation style. For instance, in APA style, quotes longer than 40 words are formatted as block quotes.



4. Proper Usage of Quotes


4.1. Contextual Relevance

Ensure that the quote you choose is relevant to the topic and adds value to your content. Avoid inserting quotes solely for decorative purposes.


4.2. Integration into Your Writing

Seamlessly integrate quotes into your writing. Introduce them appropriately and follow up with analysis or commentary to connect them to your main points.


4.3. Attribution and Citation

Always attribute quotes to their original authors and provide proper citations according to the required style guide (APA, MLA, Chicago, etc.).


5. Common Mistakes to Avoid


5.1. Overusing Quotes

Relying too heavily on quotes can overshadow your voice. Use them sparingly to support your arguments, not replace them.


5.2. Lack of Analysis

Presenting a quote without analysis or explanation can leave readers questioning its relevance. Always follow up with your interpretation or discussion.


5.3. Misquoting or Taking Out of Context

Ensure that quotes are accurate and not taken out of context, as this can mislead readers and undermine your credibility.



6. Quotes in Different Contexts


6.1. Academic Writing

In academic writing, quotes are used to support arguments, provide evidence, and engage with existing literature. Proper citation is crucial to avoid plagiarism.


6.2. Journalism

Journalists use quotes to provide firsthand accounts, add authenticity, and present multiple perspectives within a story.


6.3. Literature and Creative Writing

In literature, quotes can be used to convey character voices, themes, and stylistic elements. They enrich narratives and provide depth to storytelling.



7. Punctuation and Formatting


Understanding the correct punctuation and formatting of quotes is essential:


Quotation Marks: Always enclose direct quotes within quotation marks.


Punctuation Placement: In American English, periods and commas are placed inside quotation marks, while colons and semicolons are placed outside.


Block Quotes: For longer quotes, format them as block quotes without quotation marks, and indent the entire block.



8. Ethical Considerations


Ethical use of quotes involves accurate representation, proper attribution, and respect for intellectual property. Misuse can lead to plagiarism, which carries serious academic and professional consequences.

9. Tools for Managing Quotes


Utilize tools like citation generators and plagiarism checkers to manage quotes effectively. These tools help ensure proper formatting and originality in your writing.



Conclusion


Quotes are invaluable in enriching content, providing evidence, and conveying complex ideas succinctly. When used appropriately, they enhance the quality and credibility of your writing. Always ensure relevance, proper integration, and ethical usage to maximize their impact.


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