Money changes all the iron rules into rubber bands.
Readership was high, and very attentive. It was people's only source of knowledge about the world.
When is a crisis reached? When questions arise that can't be answered.
First you destroy those who create values. Then you destroy those who know what the values are, and who also know that those destroyed before were in fact the creators of values. But real barbarism begins when no one can any longer judge or know that what he does is barbaric.
A population weakened and exhausted by battling against so many obstacles -- whose needs are never satisfied and desires never fulfilled -- is vulnerable to manipulation and regimentation. The struggle for survival is, above all, an exercise that is hugely time-consuming, absorbing and debilitating. If you create these anti-conditions, your rule is guaranteed for a hundred years.
Although a system may cease to exist in the legal sense or as a structure of power, its values (or anti-values), its philosophy, its teachings remain in us. They rule our thinking, our conduct, our attitude to others. The situation is a demonic paradox: we have toppled the system but we still carry its genes.
In a society of little economic development, universal inactivity accompanies universal poverty. You survive not by struggling against nature, or by increasing production, or by relentless labor; instead you survive by expending as little energy as possible, by striving constantly to achieve a state of immobility.
Do not be misled by the fact that you are at liberty and relatively free; that for the moment you are not under lock and key: you have simply been granted a reprieve.
When man meets an obstacle he can't destroy, he destroys himself.
We follow the mystics. They know where they are going. They, too, go astray, but when they go astray they do so in a way that is mystical, dark, and mysterious.
Our job is like a baker's work -- his rolls are tasty as long as they're fresh; after two days they're stale; after a week, they're covered with mould and fit only to be thrown out.
Our salvation is in striving to achieve what we know we'll never achieve.
Be careful: they have arms, and no alternatives.
The tradition of Russian literature is also an eastern tradition of learning poetry and prose by heart.
There are several reasons why Russians view the oppressive state positively. First, in the Russian Orthodox religion, there is an understanding of authority as something sent by God.
My writing is a combination of three elements. The first is travel: not travel like a tourist, but travel as exploration. The second is reading literature on the subject. The third is reflection.
Amin knew that neither West nor East would criticize him for fear that he would support the other side. He felt he was untouchable and he said so openly.
This is the most intimate relationship between literature and its readers: they treat the text as a part of themselves, as a possession.
He killed his enemies because he was afraid they would kill him. Amin ordered entire tribes to be put to death, because he feared they would rebel.
Copyrighted © 2023 — Quotation.io. All rights reserved.
