I hope that no one present will suspect me of offering my personal criticism of the Western system to present socialism as an alternative. Having experienced applied socialism in a country where the alternative has been realized, I certainly will not speak for it. The well-known Soviet mathematician Shafarevich, a member of the Soviet Academy of Science, has written a brilliant book under the title Socialism; it is a profound analysis showing that socialism of any type and shade leads to a total destruction of the human spirit and to a leveling of mankind into death.
|
A decline in courage may be the most striking feature that an outside observer notices in the West today. 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 and intellectual elites...
|
I am of course confident that I will fulfill my tasks as a writer in all circumstances -- from my grave even more successfully and more irrefutably than in my lifetime. No one can bar the road to truth, and to advance its cause I am prepared to accept even death. But may it be that repeated lessons will finally teach us not to stop the writer's pen during his lifetime? At no time has this ennobled our history.
|
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.
|
Own only what you can carry with you; know language, know countries, know people. Let your memory be your travel bag.
|
It is not because the truth is too difficult to see that we make mistakes. It may even lie on the surface; but we make mistakes because the easiest and most comfortable course for us is to seek insight where it accords with our emotions— especially selfish ones.
|
One should never direct people towards happiness, because happiness too is an idol of the market-place. One should direct them towards mutual affection. A beast gnawing at its prey can be happy too, but only human beings can feel affection for each other, and this is the highest achievement they can aspire to.
|
Do not pursue what is illusory - property and position all that is gained at the expense of your nerves decade after decade and can be confiscated in one fell night. Live with a steady superiority over life - don't be afraid of misfortune, and do not yearn after happiness it is after all, all the same the bitter doesn't last forever, and the sweet never fills the cup to overflowing.
|
Literature that is not the breath of contemporary society, that dares not transmit the pains and fears of that society, that does not warn in time against threatening moral and social dangers -- such literature does not deserve the name of literature; it is only a fatade. Such literature loses the confidence of its own people, and its published works are used as wastepaper instead of being read.
|
We do not err because truth is difficult to see. It is visible at a glance. We err because this is more comfortable.
|
We have placed too much hope in political and social reforms, only to find out that we were being deprived of our most precious possession: our spiritual life.
|
Violence can only be concealed by a lie, and the lie can only be maintained by violence.
|
If decade after decade the truth cannot be told, each person's mind begins to roam irretrievably. One's fellow countrymen become harder to understand than Martians.
|
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...
|
Hastiness and superficiality are the psychic diseases of the twentieth century, and more than anywhere else this disease is reflected in the press.
|
A great writer is, so to speak, a second government in his country. And for that reason no regime has ever loved great writers, only minor ones.
|
If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere 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?
|
If one is forever cautious, can one remain a human being?
|
Own only what you can carry with you know language, know countries, know people. Let your memory be your travel bag.
|
In America the majority raises formidable barriers around the liberty of opinion within these barriers an author may write what he pleases, but woe to him if he goes beyond them.
|
Pride grows in the human heart like lard on a pig.
|
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.
|
Our envy of others devours us most of all.
|
If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insiduously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to seperate 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 truth is discovered by someone else, it loses something of its attractiveness.
|
Everything you add to the truth subtracts from the truth.
|
It is easier to be wise for others than for ourselves.
|
A man is happy so long as he chooses to be happy and nothing can stop him.
|