I refuse to see literature as amusement, as a game. I think that you ought not to approach literature without a moral responsibility for every word you write.
Such as it is, the press has become the greatest power within the Western World, more powerful than the legislature, the executive and judiciary. One would like to ask; by whom has it been elected and to whom is it responsible?
In our village, folks say God crumbles up the old moon into stars.
Lord, give me the strength to accomplish what You’ve given me to do and the faith to trust You that what I haven’t been able to accomplish You’ve already assigned to someone else.
Patriotism means unqualified and unwavering love for the nation, which implies not uncritical eagerness to serve, not support for unjust claims, but frank assessment of its vices and sins, and penitence for them.
Work is what horses die of.
Oh, how hard it is to part with power! This one has to understand.
Should one point out that from ancient times decline in courage has been considered the beginning of the end?
Let us drive away those cruel, greedy oppressors, governments, and the new ones, having just laid aside grenades and rifles, will be just and understanding. Far from it.
The timid civilized world has found nothing with which to oppose the onslaught of a sudden revival of barefaced barbarity, other than concessions and smiles.
The solemn pledge to abstain from telling the truth was called socialist realism.
A decline in courage may be the most striking feature that an outside observer notices in the West today.
For a country to have a great writer is to have another government.
Nothing is more boring than a man with a career.
Beat a dog once and you only have to show him the whip.
I leaf through the ancient philosophers and find my newest discoveries there.
The one who pulls is the one they urge on.
If a person can build a fence around himself, he is bound to do it.
Even if we are spared destruction by war, our lives will have to change if we want to save life from self-destruction.
Prayers are like those appeals of ours. Either they don’t get through or they’re returned with ‘rejected’ scrawled across ’em.
There can be no acceptable future without an honest analysis of the past.