Quotes from Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

I quoted him once before on intellectual fads and the exclusion from public debates of certain ideas. Here are a few more of my favourite quotes from him:

You're sincere, but in order not to upset your views you avoid talking with people who think differently. You pick your thoughts from conversations with people like yourself, from books written by people like yourself. In physics they call it resonance. You start out with modest opinions, but they match and build each other up to a scale ... - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

To do evil a human being must first of all believe that what he's doing is good... Ideology - that is what gives devildoing its long-sought justification and gives the evildoer the necessary steadfastness and determination. That is the social theory which helps to make his acts seem good instead of bad in his own and others' eyes, so that he won't hear reproaches and curses but will receive praise and honors. - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

It's an universal law-- intolerance is the first sign of an inadequate education. An ill-educated person behaves with arrogant impatience, whereas truly profound education breeds humility. - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn