The Gulag Archipelago Quotes
Nonfiction books|Gulag Archipelago, The
Top Quotes
“Governments were never moral beings.”
“Nay, as you can expect no corn grow on a rocky ground, likewise you can't expect any goodness from a thief.”
“Wikipedia: The Gulag Archipelago”
“Every man always has handy a dozen glib little reasons why he is right not to sacrifice himself.”
“Remember everything you did that was bad and shameful and take thought —can you possible correct it now? Yes, you have been imprisoned for nothing.”
“We forget everything. What we remember is not what actually happened, not history, but merely that hackneyed dotted line they have chosen to drive into our memories by incessant hammering.”
“The whole raison d'etre of serfdom and the Archipelago is one and the same: these are the social structures for the ruthlessly enforced utilization of the free-of-cost work of millions of slaves. ”
“I dedicate this
to all those who did not live
to tell it.
And may they please forgive me
for not having seen it all
nor remembered it all,
for not having divined all of it.”
“When after the war a foreman of Inta lumber plant was buried in coffin, the culture and re-education department received instructions to agitate: Work fine and you shall be buried in coffin as well!”
“"Russian pens are too busy to write about it, and Russian eyes don't have time to read about it. Only doctors can tell us how months in such a [prison] cell will ruin a human being's health for his entire life" Ch.2”
“The first fruits of the popular victory in Stalingrad were the decree on the militarisation of railroads (boys and women to tribunal) and one day later (April 17) the decree on introduction of hard labour and gallows.”
“The Universe has as many different centers as there are living beings in it. Each of us is the center of the Universe, and that Universe is shattered when they hiss at you, "You are under arrest."”
“In 1946, a special rule by plenum of Supreme Court of the USSR (July 12, 1946, nr. 8/5/u) was necessary: "On the possibility of exercising punishment only on those persons, who have committed a certain crime." But this was freely bypassed.”
“Six geologists got §58-7, everyone ten years, for "deliberate hiding (!-for not discovering!) of a lead deposit for the sake of German arrival"”
“Lev Tolstoi was right when he dreamed of being put in prison. At certain moment the giant began to dry up. He actually needed prison as a drought needs a shower of rain... And I say without hesitation: "Bless you, prison, for having been in my life!"...”
“For years, I have with a reluctant heart withheld from publication this already completed book: my obligation to those still living outweighed my obligation to the dead. But now that State Security has seized the book anyway, I have no alternative but to publish it immediately.”
“For twenty years, the religion was being persecuted and the churches closed. The Germans came and began re-opening churches […] In Rostov-on-Don the inauguration became a huge jubilation, that attracted lots of people. But of course they should have damned the Germans for that, eh?”
“It would appear that during the one thousand one hundred years of Russia's existence as a state there have been, ah, how many foul and terrible deeds! But among them was there ever so multimillioned foul a deed as this: to betray one's own soldiers and proclaim them traitors?”
“In March, 1972 Britain was shocked when a 14 year old English boy was sentenced to 6 years of prison in Turkey for having done business with large quantities of drugs […]. But where were the eyes and hearts of your left wing leaders and lawyers, when you read about Stalin's laws on juveniles?”
“Philosophers, psychologists, doctors, writers could have observed in our camps more than in anywhere else in all the versatility and in full details the specific process of narrowing of man's mental and intellectual horizon, decline of a man to the level of an animal and his process of dying alive.”