“Ivanov came to quite the same conclusion, though life supplied him with quite different material to think about. He puts it like this: many lives have a mystical sense, but not everyone reads it right; more often than not it is given to us in cryptic form, and when we fail to decipher it we despair because our lives seem meaningless… the secret of a great life is often a man’s success in deciphering the mysterious symbols vouchsafed to him, understanding them, and so learning to walk in the true path.”

— Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, book The Oak and the Calf

The Oak and the Calf (1975)

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Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn120

Russian writer 1918–2008

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