Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn (11 December 19183 August 2008) was a Russian novelist, historian, and tireless critic of Communist totalitarianism.
It would have been difficult to design a path out of communism worse than the one that has been followed. Use this quote
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. Use this quote
Literature transmits incontrovertible condensed experience... from generation to generation. In this way literature becomes the living memory of a nation. Use this quote
The sole substitute for an experience which we have not ourselves lived through is art and literature. Use this quote
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. Use this quote
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. Use this quote
The battleline between good and evil runs through the heart of every man. Use this quote
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. Use this quote
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. Use this quote
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. Use this quote
