Aleksander Sołżenicyn cytaty

„Cnocie, wychłostanej i mizernej, wolno już teraz wejść w swoich łachmanach i zająć miejsce w kącie, byleby tylko siedziała cicho.”

Archipelag Gułag

„Ustrój, jaki nami rządzi, to połączenie starej nomenklatury, rekinów finansjery, fałszywych demokratów i KGB. Tego nie mogę nazwać demokracją – to wstrętna, nie mająca precedensu w historii hybryda, o której nie wiadomo, w jakim kierunku będzie się rozwijać… [ale] jeśli ten sojusz zwycięży, będą nas eksploatować nie przez 70, ale przez 170 lat.”

Archipelag Gułag

„W okresie dyktatury, otoczeni ze wszystkich stron wrogami, przejawialiśmy niekiedy zbytnią miękkość, przesadną łagodność”

o Rosji z początku lat dziewięćdziesiątych.
Źródło: Ryszard Kapuściński, Imperium, Czytelnik, 1993, s. 6.

„System u nas panujący (…) żąda od nas pełnego oddania własnej duszy…”

Archipelag Gułag

„Gdy Pawła Nikołajewicza nic w pokoju nie wprawiało w rozdrażnienie, gdy gnębiący go smutek zmniejszał się do zwykłych ludzkich rozmiarów – generał stawał sobie przy oknie i patrząc na park nucił cicho, a głos miał miły: „Uśnij serce, niech sen tu zagości. Nie budź mnie ani tego co było…” I bądź tu mądry! – mógł być najmilszym gościem w każdym salonie! A ileż zbiorowych mogił więźniarskich zostawił wzdłuż torów, które budował!”

Źródło: Na wozwratie dychanija i soznanija

„Prawdziwy mędrzec zadowala się małym.”

Archipelag Gułag

Aleksander Sołżenicyn książka Oddział chorych na raka

Oddział chorych na raka

„Żyj z poczuciem spokojnej wyższości nad życiem, nie bój się biedy, nie żałuj straconego szczęścia, przecież i tak – ani goryczy do dna, ani słodyczy do pełna. Już dosyć tego, że nie marzniesz, że głód i pragnienie nie rwą ci wnętrzności. Jeśli masz nieprzetrącony kręgosłup, jeśli obie nogi jeszcze chodzą, obie ręce się ruszają, oboje oczu widzi, a oboje uszu słyszy – to komu jeszcze tu zazdrościć? Po co? Zawiść zżera w końcu samego zawistnika. Przetrzyj oczy – przywróć czystość sercu – i najwyżej sobie ceń tych, którzy ci dobrze życzą. Nie krzywdź ich, nie obrażaj, z nikim z nich nie rozstawaj się w gniewie, toć nie wiadomo czy to nie ostatni twój uczynek przed aresztowaniem i czy nie taki twój obraz zostanie w ich pamięci!”

„I nic w trakcie rewizji nie może być uznane za drobiazg!”

Archipelag Gułag

„Ania Lehtonen w obozie Ortau straciła uczucie dla swego ukochanego w ciągu 20 minut, gdy strażnik prowadził ich do karceru, a chłopak skomlał uniżenie o łaskę.”

Archipelag Gułag

„Oto czym jest aresztowanie: to blask oślepiający i cios, które sprawiają, że teraźniejszość nagle staje się przeszłością, zaś to, co niemożliwe, zaczyna być pełnoprawną codziennością.”

Archipelag Gułag

„Bo gdy nam źle - nie wstydzimy się Boga. Wstydzimy się go tylko wtedy, gdy nam dobrze.”

Archipelag Gułag

“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.”

Archipelag Gułag

Aleksander Sołżenicyn: Cytaty po angielsku

“Education doesn't make you smarter.”

Źródło: Rebuilding Russia: Reflections and Tentative Proposals

“To stand up for truth is nothing. For truth, you must sit in jail.”

“The sole substitute for an experience we have not ourselves lived through is art and literature.”

“Do not pursue what is illusory - property and position: all that is gained at the expense of your nerves decade after decade and can be 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.”

“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.”

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

Źródło: The Gulag Archipelago 1918-1956

“In different places over the years I have had to prove that socialism, which to many western thinkers is a sort of kingdom of justice, was in fact full of coercion, of bureaucratic greed and corruption and avarice, and consistent within itself that socialism cannot be implemented without the aid of coercion.”

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn książka One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich

Źródło: One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (1962)

“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.”

Interview with Joseph Pearce, Sr. (2003)
Kontekst: In different places over the years I have had to prove that socialism, which to many western thinkers is a sort of kingdom of justice, was in fact full of coercion, of bureaucratic greed and corruption and avarice, and consistent within itself that socialism cannot be implemented without the aid of coercion. 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.
Untouched by the breath of God, unrestricted by human conscience, both capitalism and socialism are repulsive.

“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.”

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.
Variant translation, as quoted in TIME (25 February 1974).
Nobel lecture (1970)
Kontekst: 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

“Not everything assumes a name. Some things lead beyond words.”

Nobel lecture (1970)
Kontekst: 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.

“Of course, one cannot declare that only my faith is correct and all other faiths are not. Of course God is endlessly multi-dimensional so every religion that exists on earth represents some face, some side of God.”

Nobel lecture (1970)
Kontekst: 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...

“We, holding Art in our hands, confidently consider ourselves to be its masters”

Interview with Joseph Pearce, Sr. (2003)
Kontekst: Of course, one cannot declare that only my faith is correct and all other faiths are not. Of course 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. In this sense we have to admit that Protestantism has brought everything down only to faith.
Calvinism says that nothing depends on man, that faith is already predetermined. Also in its sharp protest against Catholicism, Protestantism rushed to discard together with ritual all the mysterious, the mythical and mystical aspects of the Faith. In that sense it has impoverished religion.

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

Nobel lecture (1970)
Kontekst: We, holding Art in our hands, confidently consider ourselves to be its masters; boldly we direct it, we renew, reform and manifest it; we sell it for money, use it to please those in power; turn to it at one moment for amusement — right down to popular songs and night-clubs, and at another — grabbing the nearest weapon, cork or cudgel — for the passing needs of politics and for narrow-minded social ends. But art is not defiled by our efforts, neither does it thereby depart from its true nature, but on each occasion and in each application it gives to us a part of its secret inner light.

“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.”

Źródło: The Gulag Archipelago 1918-1956

“A man is happy so long as he chooses to be happy.”

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn książka Two Hundred Years Together

The First Circle (1968)
Źródło: Двести лет вместе

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

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn książka Oddział chorych na raka

Źródło: Cancer Ward

“The simple step of a courageous individual is not to take part in the lie. "One word of truth outweighs the world.”

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn książka One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich

Źródło: One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich

“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.”

“The meaning of earthly existence lies not, as we have grown used to thinking, in prospering but in the development of the soul.”

“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.”

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn książka Oddział chorych na raka

Źródło: Cancer Ward

“It is in the nature of the human being to seek afor his actions.”

Źródło: The Gulag Archipelago 1918-1956

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

Źródło: The Gulag Archipelago, 1918-1956: An Experiment in Literary Investigation V-VII

“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.”

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn książka The First Circle

Źródło: The First Circle

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn książka The First Circle

Źródło: The First Circle

“Live not by lies!”

“If we live in a state of constant fear, can we remain human?”

“Work is what horses die of”

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn książka The First Circle

Źródło: The First Circle

“Thus it is that no cruelty whatsoever passes by without impact. Thus it is that we always pay dearly for chasing after what is cheap.”

“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.”

Źródło: The Gulag Archipelago 1918-1956

“Archeologists have not discovered stages of human existence so early that they were without art.”