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Jordan Peterson
Solzhenitsyn was a survivor of the Soviet gulags, or labor camps, and the author of The Gulag Archipelago. Peterson mentions Solzhenitsyn several times as an example of someone who, though he may have been entitled to become bitter about his sufferings, instead chose to improve himself and Being (existence) in general—especially by writing The Gulag Archipelago, which ultimately helped undermine communist oppression in the Soviet Union.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Quotes in 12 Rules for Life
The 12 Rules for Life quotes below are all either spoken by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn or refer to Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Overture
Quotes
Over the previous decades I had read more than my share of dark books about the twentieth century, focusing particularly on Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn […] once wrote that the “pitiful ideology” holding that “human beings are created for happiness” was an ideology “done in by the first blow of the work assigner’s cudgel.” In a crisis, the inevitable suffering that life entails can rapidly make a mockery of the idea that happiness is the proper pursuit of the individual. On the radio show, I suggested, instead, that a deeper meaning was required.
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Explanation and Analysis:
Rule 8
Quotes
If you say no to your boss, or your spouse, or your mother, when it needs to be said, then you transform yourself into someone who can say no when it needs to be said. If you say yes when no needs to be said, however, you transform yourself into someone who can only say yes, even when it is clearly time to say no. If you ever wonder how perfectly ordinary, decent people could find themselves doing the terrible things the gulag camp guards did, you now have your answer. By the time no seriously needed to be said, there was no one left capable of saying it.
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Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Quotes in 12 Rules for Life
The 12 Rules for Life quotes below are all either spoken by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn or refer to Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Overture
Quotes
Over the previous decades I had read more than my share of dark books about the twentieth century, focusing particularly on Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn […] once wrote that the “pitiful ideology” holding that “human beings are created for happiness” was an ideology “done in by the first blow of the work assigner’s cudgel.” In a crisis, the inevitable suffering that life entails can rapidly make a mockery of the idea that happiness is the proper pursuit of the individual. On the radio show, I suggested, instead, that a deeper meaning was required.
Related Characters:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Rule 8
Quotes
If you say no to your boss, or your spouse, or your mother, when it needs to be said, then you transform yourself into someone who can say no when it needs to be said. If you say yes when no needs to be said, however, you transform yourself into someone who can only say yes, even when it is clearly time to say no. If you ever wonder how perfectly ordinary, decent people could find themselves doing the terrible things the gulag camp guards did, you now have your answer. By the time no seriously needed to be said, there was no one left capable of saying it.
