Skip to content

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.

— Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Another quote →

Topics

Freedom

More quotes by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

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.

The First Circle (1968)

Justice is conscience, not a personal conscience but the conscience of the whole of humanity. Those who clearly recognize the voice of their own conscience usually recognize also the voice of justice.

At no time has the world been without war. Not in seven or ten or twenty thousand years.

I believe that world literature has it in its power to help mankind, in these its troubled hours, to see itself as it really is, notwithstanding the indoctrinations of prejudiced people and parties.

Nobel lecture (1970)

A state of war only serves as an excuse for domestic tyranny.

The Gulag Archipelago (1973)

All Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn quotes →

You may also like

You have to start with the truth. The truth is the only way that we can get anywhere. Because any decision-making that is based upon lies or ignorance can't lead to a good conclusion.

Julian Assange

What constitutes the bulwark of our own liberty and independence?

Abraham Lincoln

Science and religion are two human enterprises sharing many features.

Freeman Dyson Infinite in All Directions (1988)

There is no governor anywhere; you are all absolutely free. There is no restraint that cannot be escaped.

Robert Anton Wilson

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.