Quotes From "The First Circle" By Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Satiety depends not at all on how much we eat, but on how we eat. It's the same with happiness, the very same...happiness doesn't depend on how many external blessings we have snatched from life. It depends only on our attitude toward them. There's a saying about it in the Taoist ethic: 'Whoever is capable of contentment will always be satisfied. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

All history is one continuous pestilence. There is no truth and there is no illusion. There is nowhere to appeal and nowhere to go. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

If one is forever cautious, can one remain a human being? Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

The great truth for Innokenty used to be that we are given only one life. Now, with the new feeling that had ripened in him, he became aware of another law: that we are given only one conscience, too. A life laid down cannot be reclaimed, nor can a ruined conscience. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

In the realm of the unknown, difficulties must be viewed as a hidden treasure! Usually, the more difficult, the better. It's not as valuable if your difficulties stem from your own inner struggle. But when difficulties arise out of increasing objective resistance, that's marvelous! Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

You can build the Empire State Building. Train the Prussian army. Elevate the hierarchy of a totalitarian state higher than the throne of the Most High.But there are still people whose moral superiority defeats your own. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

If a person can build a fence around himself, he is bound to do it. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

It is a human characteristic, which has been richly exploited in every era, that while hope of survival is still alive in a man, while he still believes his troubles will have a favorable outcome, and while he still has the chance to unmask treason or to save someone else by sacrificing himself, he continues to cling to the pitiful remnants of comfort and remains silent and submissive. When he has been taken and destroyed, when he has nothing more to lose, and is, in consequence, ready and eager for heroic action, his belated rage can only spend itself against the stone walls of solitary confinement. Or the breath of the death sentence makes him indifferent to earthly affairs. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Wherever they went– Moscow, Tehran, the Syrian coast, Switzerland–a furnished house, villa, or apartment awaited the young couple. And their philosophies of life were the same: "We have only one life! " So take everything life can give, except one thing: the birth of a child. For a child is an idol who sucks dry the juices of your being without any return for your sacrifices, not even ordinary gratitude. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

We are all human, and our senses are quicker to prompt us than our reason. Every man gives off a scent, and that scent tells you how to act before your head does. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Freedom or prison--what's the difference? A man must develop unwavering will power subject only to his reason. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

That's why there's a devil–to judge the priests. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Talent is always conscious of its own abundance, and does not object to sharing. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Just as King Midas turned everything to gold, Stalin turned everything to mediocrity. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

No one, even as a joke, could call a member of the all- Union Communist Party a Neo-Hegelian, a Neo-Kantian, a Subjectivist, an Agnostic, or, God forbid, a Revisionist. But "epicurean" sounded so harmless it could not possibly imply that one was not an orthodox Marxist. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

What a relief, Nadya thought; in that light he would not be able to tell that she had been crying." You mean if it weren't for the blackout you wouldn't have come?" Dasha took up Shchagov's tone, flirting unconsciously, as she did with every unmarried man she met." By no means, never. In bright light women's faces are deprived of all their charm; it reveals their spiteful expressions, their envious glances, their premature wrinkles, their heavy cosmetics." Nadya shuddered at the words "envious glances"–it was as if he had overheard their argument. Shchagov went on:" If I were a woman, I would make it a law that lights be kept low. Then everyone would soon have a husband." Dasha looked disapprovingly at Shchagov. He always talked that way, and she didn't like it. All his phrases seemed memorized, insincere. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Those who floated in the ark were weightless and had weightless thoughts. They were neither hungry nor satisfied. They had no happiness and no fear of losing it. Their heads were not filled with petty official calculations, intrigues, promotions, and their shoulders were not burdened with concerns about housing, fuel, bread, and clothes for the children. Love, which from time immemorial has been the delight and the torment of humanity, was powerless to communicate to them its thrill or its agony. Their prison terms were so long that no one even thought of the time when he would go out into freedom. Men with exceptional Intellect, education, and experience, but too devoted to their families to have much of themselves left over for their friends, here belonged only to friends. . Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

It was clearly a prisoner's craftwork; that is, the most painstaking work in the world, for prisoners have nowhere to hurry to. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

The harder life is for a man when he is young, the easier it will be in the future. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn