Len

“But in the 17th century Russian Orthodoxy was gravely weakened by an internal schism. In the 18th, the country was shaken by Peter's forcibly imposed transformations, which favored the economy, the state, and the military at the expense of the religious spirit and national life. And along with this lopsided Petrine enlightenment, Russia felt the first whiff of secularism; its subtle poisons permeated the educated classes in the course of the 19th century and opened the path to Marxism. By the time of the Revolution, faith had virtually disappeared in Russian educated circles; and amongst the uneducated, its health was threatened.”
― Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn

“I leaf through the ancient philosophers and find my newest discoveries there.”
― Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn, The First Circle

“...it's only on a black day that you begin to have friends.”
― Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The First Circle

“The Western world has lost its civil courage, both as a whole and separately, in each country, each government, each political party and of course in the United Nations. Such a decline in courage is particularly noticeable among the ruling groups and the intellectual elite, causing an impression of loss of courage by the entire society.”
― Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn