How can you expect a man who’s warm to understand one who’s cold?
When you’re cold, don’t expect sympathy from someone who’s warm.
Every human act can be disguised with a coating of gilt.
Economic growth is not only unncessary, but ruinous.
Nowadays we don’t think much of a man’s love for an animal; we laugh at people who are attached to cats. But if we stop loving animals, aren’t we bound to stop loving humans too?
Human nature, if it changes at all, changes not much faster than the geological face of the earth.
The price of cowardice will only be evil. We shall reap courage and victory only when we dare to make sacrifices.
Voting for impersonal parties and their programmes is a false substitute for the only true way to elect people’s representatives: voting by an actual person for an actual candidate.
Freedom or prison – what’s the difference? A man must develop unwavering will power subject only to his reason.
Our envy of others devours us most of all.
Evil people always support each other; that is their chief strength.
We should clearly understand that only the voluntary and conscientious acceptance by a people of its guilt can ensure the healing of a nation. Unremitting reproaches from outside are counterproductive.
It was wrong to be too pragmatic, to judge people solely by results; it was more humane to judge by intentions.
During my time in the camps, I had got to know the enemies of the human race quite well: they respect the big fist and nothing else; the harder you slug them, the safer you will be.
One should not ascribe the evil deeds of individual leaders or political regimes to an innate fault of the Russian people and their country.
When truth is discovered by someone else, it loses something of its attractiveness.
We are all human, and our senses are quicker to prompt us than our reason. Every man gives off a scent, and that scent tells you how to act before your head does.
If we could all take a sober look at our history, then we would no longer see this nostalgic attitude to the Soviet past that predominates among the less affected part of our society.
The thoughts of a prisoner – they’re not free either. They keep returning to the same things.
Anything too far out of tune with our attitude is lost, either in the ears themselves or somewhere beyond, but it is lost.