“The meaning of earthly existence lies not, as we have grown used to thinking, in prospering but in the development of the soul.”
― Cancer Ward
― Cancer Ward
“And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand?... The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin's thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt! If...if...We didn't love freedom enough. And even more – we had no awareness of the real situation.... We purely and simply deserved everything that happened afterward.”
― The Gulag Archipelago 1918–1956
― The Gulag Archipelago 1918–1956
“To stand up for truth is nothing. For truth, you must sit in jail.”
― Candle in the Wind
― Candle in the Wind
“If one is forever cautious, can one remain a human being?”
― The First Circle
― The First Circle
Roger’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Roger’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
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