Hastiness and superficiality are the psychic diseases of the twentieth century. - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

I am of course confident that I will fulfil my tasks as a writer in all circumstances — from my grave even more successfully and more irrefutably than in my lifetime. No one can bar the road to truth, and to advance its cause I am prepared to accept even death. But may it be that repeated lessons will finally teach us not to stop the writer’s pen during his lifetime? At no time has this ennobled our history.

The sole substitute for an experience we have not ourselves lived through is art and literature.

One should never direct people towards happiness, because
happiness too is an idol of the market-place. One should direct
them towards mutual affection. A beast gnawing at its prey
can be happy too, but only human beings can feel affection
for each other, and this is the highest achievement they can
aspire to.