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Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Quotes and Quotations
A decline in courage may be the most striking feature which an outside observer notices in the West in our days. The Western world has lost its civic courage, both as a whole and separately, in each country, in each government, in each political party, and, of course, in the United Nations. Such a decline in courage is particularly noticeable among the ruling groups and the intellectual elite, causing an impression that the loss of courage extends to the entire society. If one is forever cautious, can one remain a human being? For a country to have a great writer is to have another government. One can build the Empire State Building, discipline the Prussian army, make a state hierarchy mightier than God, yet fail to overcome the unaccountable superiority of certain human biengs. If only there were evil people somewhere, insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart? When you have robbed a man of everything, he is no longer in your power. He is free again. Fools take to themselves the respect that is given to their office. Aesop It is time in the West to defend not so much human rights as human obligations. Talent is always conscious of its own abundance, and does not object to sharing. No one can bar the road to truth, and to advance its cause I'm ready to accept even death. It is not the level of prosperity that makes for happiness but the kinship of heart to heart and the way we look at the world. Both attitudes are within our power, so that a man is happy so long as he chooses to be happy, and no one can stop him. If one is forever cautious, can one remain a human being? |