Alexandre Solzhenitsyn Quotes

... I have no knowledge of the world so I read in peace.

The most terrifying force of death, comes from the hands of men who wanted to be left alone. They try, so very hard, to mind their own business and provide for themselves and those they love. They resist every impulse to fight back, knowing the forced and permanent change of life that will come from it. They know, that the moment they fight back, their lives as they have lived them, are over. The moment the men who wanted to be left alone are forced to fight back, it is a form of suicide. They are literally killing off who they used to be. Which is why, when forced to take up violence, these men who wanted to be left alone, fight with unholy vengeance against those who murdered their former lives. They fight with raw hate, and a drive that cannot be fathomed by those who are merely play-acting at politics and terror. TRUE TERROR will arrive at these people’s door, and they will cry, scream and beg for mercy… but it will fall upon the deaf ears of the men who just wanted to be left alone.

We have to condemn publicly the very idea that some people have the right to repress others. In keeping silent about evil, and burying it so deep within us that no sign of it appears on the surface, we are implanting it, and it will rise up a thousand fold in the future.

The line dividing good and evil cuts through every human heart.

Creo que con lo expuesto aquí queda demostrado que en el exterminio de millones de hombres, y en su destierro al Gulag, hubo una coherencia fría y meditada y un incansable tesón. Que en nuestro país las cárceles nunca estuvieron vacías, sino repletas o incluso atiborradas. Que mientras vosotros andabais gratamente ocupados con los inofensivos secretos del átomo, estudiabais la influencia de Heidegger en Sartre, coleccionabais reproducciones de Picasso, viajabais en coche-cama a los balnearios o terminabais de edificar vuestra dacha en las afueras de Moscú, los "cuervos" recorrían incansablemente las calles y la Seguridad del Estado llamaba, con los nudillos o el timbre, a las puertas. Y creo que con lo expuesto queda demostrado también que los Órganos jamás vivieron de la sopa boba.

A seguir, a admiração geral pelos revolucionários, tanto maior, quanto mais extremistas. Na Rússia havia, senão um culto do terror, pelo menos uma feroz defesa dos terroristas. Pessoas de bem, intelectuais, professores, liberais, gastavam grandes esforços e indignação em defesa dos terroristas.

If the intellectuals in the plays of Chekhov, who spent all their time guessing what would happen in twenty, thirty, or forty years, had been told that in forty years interrogation by torture would be practiced in Russia; that prisoners would have their skulls squeezed with iron rings; that a human being would be lowered into an acid bath; that they would be trussed up naked to be bitten by ants and bedbugs; that a ramrod heated over a primus stove would be thrust up their anal canal (the ‘secret brand’); that a man’s genitals would be slowly crushed beneath the toe of a jackboot; and that, in the luckiest possible circumstances, prisoners would be tortured by being kept from sleeping for a week, by thirst, and by being beaten to a bloody pulp, not one of Chekhov’s plays would have gotten to its end because all the heroes would have gone off to insane asylums.

Because of their upbringing, their traditions, they were too proud to show depression or fear, to whine and complain about their fate to even friends. It was a sign of good manners to take everything with a smile, even while being marched out to be shot.

This universal mistrust had the effect of deepening the mass-grave pit of slavery. The moment someone began to speak up frankly, everyone stepped back and shunned him: “A provocation!” And therefore anyone who burst out with a sincere protest was predestined to loneliness and alienation.

Alexandr Solzhenitsyn, que documentó con todo detalle los horrores de los campos de trabajo forzado de esta última, escribió en una ocasión que la «lamentable ideología» que sostiene que «los seres humanos son creados para ser felices [...] se derrumba con el primer golpe de garrote del capataz».