“Not everything assumes a name. Some things lead beyond words.”
Nobel lecture (1970)
Context: Not everything assumes a name. Some things lead beyond words. Art inflames even a frozen, darkened soul to a high spiritual experience. Through art we are sometimes visited — dimly, briefly — by revelations such as cannot be produced by rational thinking.
Like that little looking-glass from the fairy-tales: look into it and you will see — not yourself — but for one second, the Inaccessible, whither no man can ride, no man fly. And only the soul gives a groan...
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Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn 120
Russian writer 1918–2008Related quotes

Source: Everything Belongs: The Gift of Contemplative Prayer (1999), p. 127

“Some of us – poets are not exactly poets. We live sometimes – beyond the word.”

Mont Saint Michel and Chartres (1904)