Aaro Blanchardo > Aaro's Quotes

“If I were asked today to formulate as concisely as possible what was the main cause of the ruinous revolution that swallowed up some 60 million of our people, I could not put it more accurately than to repeat: 'Men had forgotten God; that is why all this has happened.' ”
― Alexander Solzhenitsyn

“Violence does not necessarily take people by the throat and strangle them. Usually it demands no more than an ultimate allegiance from its subjects. They are required merely to become accomplices in its lies.”
― Alexander Solzhenitsyn

“But it is impossible to picture any of our interrogators, right up to Abakumov and Beria, wanting to slip into prisoner's skin even for one hour, or feeling compelled to sit and meditate in solitary confinement.

Their branch of service does not require them to be educated people of broad culture and broad views—and they are not. Their branch of service does not require them to think logically—and they do not. Their branch of service requires only that they carry out orders exactly and be impervious to suffering—and that is what they do and what they are. We who have passed through their hands feel suffocated when we think of the legion, which is stripped bare of universal human ideals.”
― Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago 1918–1956

“The thoughts of a prisoner—they're not free either. They kept returning to the same things. A single idea keeps stirring. Would they feel that piece of bread in the mattress? Would he have any luck in the dispensary that evening? Would they out Buinovsky in the cells? And how did Tsezar get his hands on that warm vest?”
― Alexander Solzhenitsyn, One Day In The Life Of Ivan Denisovich

“You know, that is one of the consequences of the weak sense of responsibility of the press. The press does not feel responsibility for its judgments. It makes judgments and attaches labels with the greatest of ease. Mediocre journalists simply make headlines of their conclusions, which suddenly become generally accepted.”
― Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Warning to the West

“It is astonishing that Communism has been writing about itself in the most open way, in black and white, for 125 years, and even more openly, more candidly in the beginning. The [book:Communist Manifesto|30474, for instance, which everyone knows by name and which almost no one takes the trouble to read, contains even more terrible things than what has actually been done. It is perfectly amazing. The whole world can read, everyone is literate, yet somehow no one wants to understand. Humanity acts as if it does not understand what Communism is, as if it does not want to understand, is not capable of understanding.”
― Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Warning to the West

“Communism is as crude an attempt to explain society and the individual as if a surgeon were to perform his delicate operations with a meat ax. All that is subtle in human psychology and in the structure of society (which is even more complex), all of this is reduced to crude economic processes. The whole created being—man—is reduced to matter. It is characteristic that Communism is so devoid of arguments that it has none to advance against its opponents in our Communist countries. It lacks arguments and hence there is the club, the prison, the concentration camp, and insane asylums with forced confinement.”
― Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Warning to the West

“Of course in the present situation the Communists have to use various disguises. Sometimes we hear words like "popular front," at other times "dialogue with Christianity." For Communists a dialogue with Christianity! In the Soviet Union this dialogue was a simple matter: they used machine guns and revolvers.”
― Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Warning to the West

“All Communist Parties, upon attaining power, have become completely merciless. But at the stage before they achieve power, it is necessary to use disguises.”
― Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Warning to the West

“I think, ladies and gentlemen, and I particularly address those of you who have a socialist outlook, that we should at least permit this socialist economy to prove its superiority. Let's allow it to show that it is advanced, that it is omnipotent, that it has defeated you, that it has overtaken you. Let us not interfere with it. Let us stop selling to it and giving it loans. If it's all that powerful, then let it stand on its own feet for ten or fifteen years. Then we will see what it looks like. I can tell you what it will look like. I am being quite serious now. When the Soviet economy will no longer be able to deal with everything, it will have to reduce its military preparations. It will have to abandon the useless space effort and it will have to feed and clothe its own people. And the system will be forced to relax.

Thus, all I ask of you is that as long as this Soviet economy is so proud, so flourishing, and yours is so rotten and so moribund—stop helping it. When has a cripple ever helped along an athlete?”
― Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Warning to the West

“Socialism of any type leads to a total destruction of the human spirit and to a leveling of mankind into death.”
― Alexander Solzhenitsyn

“What is objectionable, what is dangerous about extremists is not that they are extreme, but that they are intolerant. The evil is not what they say about their cause, but what they say about their opponents.”
― Robert F. Kennedy

“Few men are willing to brave the disapproval of their peers, the censure of their colleagues, the wrath of their society. Moral courage is a rarer commodity than bravery in battle or great intelligence. Yet it is the one essential, vital quality for those who seek to change a world that yields most painfully to change.”
― Robert F. Kennedy

“Fear not the path of Truth for the lack of People walking on it.”
― Robert F. Kennedy

“Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to reform (or pause and reflect).”
― Mark Twain

“Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.”
― Mark Twain

“Substitute 'damn' every time you're inclined to write 'very;' your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be.”
― Mark Twain

“I did not attend his funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it.”
― Mark Twain

“Loyalty to country ALWAYS. Loyalty to government, when it deserves it.”
― Mark Twain

“The trouble is not in dying for a friend, but in finding a friend worth dying for.”
― Mark Twain

“Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear - not absence of fear.”
― Mark Twain

“I've lived through some terrible things in my life, some of which actually happened.”
― Mark Twain

“The best way to cheer yourself is to try to cheer someone else up.”
― Mark Twain

“The secret to getting ahead is getting started.”
― Mark Twain

“A clear conscience is the sure sign of a bad memory.”
― Mark Twain

“The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.”
― Mark Twain

“I have found out that there ain't no surer way to find out whether you like people or hate them than to travel with them.”
― Mark Twain, Tom Sawyer Abroad

“The most interesting information come from children, for they tell all they know and then stop.”
― Mark Twain

“The human race has only one really effective weapon and that is laughter.”
― Mark Twain

“Never argue with stupid people, they will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience.”
― Mark Twain