Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Quotes

I want, by understanding myself, to understand others. I want to be all that I am capable of becoming.

I think that we all have within us the potential for almost anything. If we play close attention to our lives, then we can get at it somehow.

I can't imagine, as a human being, not being able to grow.

All progress and power are already in every man; perfection is man's nature, only it is barred in and prevented from taking its proper course.

Nobody can decide for himself whether he is going to be a human being. The only question open to him is whether he will be an ignorant undeveloped one or one who has sought to reach the highest point he is capable of attaining.

One must have the adventurous daring to accept oneself as a bundle of possibilities and undertake the most interesting game in the world -- making the most of one's best.

Real education consists in drawing the best out of yourself.

Those who follow the part of themselves which is great are great men; those who follow the part which is little are little men.

The job is, if we are willing to take it seriously, to help ourselves to be more perfectly what we are, to be more full, more actualizing, more realizing in fact, what we are in potentiality.

What a man can be, he must be. This need we call self-actualization.

I've had an addiction for a long time to the whole business of maximizing one's potential, what I call human activation. The vehicle for actualizing oneself is choice, options, seeking out the proper choices.

Culture is the process by which a person becomes all that they were created capable of being.

You don't find out who you are unless you work at it.

I don't know, as long as I get to evolve and grow as an actor and as a person, that's the stuff I'm after.

Each person holds so much power within themselves that needs to be let out. Sometimes they just need a little nudge, a little direction, a little support, a little coaching, and the greatest things can happen.

Know thyself. A maxim as pernicious as it is ugly. Whoever studies himself arrest his own development. A caterpillar who seeks to know himself would never become a butterfly.

As a teacher I realize that what one learns in school doesn't serve for very much at all, that the only thing one can really learn is self-understanding, and this is something that can't be taught.

I'm always looking for a way to give myself something new as a person.

I prefer stories about people who are, in a sense, trying to find better versions of themselves.

Everything that enlarges the sphere of human powers, that shows man he can do what he thought he could not do, is valuable.

Ever since I was a child I have had this instinctive urge for expansion and growth. To me, the function and duty of a quality human being is the sincere and honest development of one's potential.

I think your self emerges more clearly over time.

I'm a great believer in people and their untapped potential.

One's only rival is one's own potentialities. One's only failure is failing to live up to one's own possibilities. In this sense, every man can be a king, and must therefore be treated like a king.

There are powers inside of you which, if you could discover and use, would make of you everything you ever dreamed or imagined you could become.