Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Quotes

The world is ruled by violence, or at least the imminent threat of violence. It always has been.

Any society based on domination supports and condones violence.

Power over others is weakness disguised as strength.

Force, no matter how concealed, begets resistance.

The word "education" has an evil sound in politics; there is a pretense of education, when the real purpose is coercion without the use of force.

See, people with power understand exactly one thing: violence.

You keep folks so intimidated. You can give them money, access, but they're still scared. And as long as you're scared, you're on the plantation.

Physical violence is the basis of authority.

The enemies of freedom do not argue; they shout and they shoot.

The most important thing about power is to make sure you don't have to use it.

Force is not a remedy.

All violence consists in some people forcing others, under threat of suffering or death, to do what they do not want to do.

A good deal of tyranny goes by the name of protection.

Men still have to be governed by deception.

I have built my organization upon fear.

If you were to come to Minnesota, I could have you locked up like that. That's power.

When it comes to tyrants, dictators and terrorists, strength and the threat of force is the only language they understand.

A suppressing person isn't critical. A suppressing person is a person who denies the rights of others.

Power acquired by violence is only a usurpation, and lasts only as long as the force of him who commands prevails over that of those who obey.

We kind of agree with Mao that political power comes largely from the barrel of a gun. And we get it that if you want a friend you should get a dog.

Our sense of power is more vivid when we break a man's spirit than when we win his heart.

Whatever needs to be maintained through force is doomed.

Sometimes fear is used as a way to control.

Dr. Flint had sworn that he would make me suffer, to my last day, for this new crime against him, as he called it; and as long as he had me in his power he kept his word.

The use of force to liberate people is very different from the use of force to suppress or control them, or even to defeat them.