Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The First Circle Quotes

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

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

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

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

...it's only on a black day that you begin to have friends.

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.

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

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

That's why there's a devil—to judge the priests.

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