The intellectual is not defined by professional group and type of occupation. Nor are good upbringing and a good family enough in themselves to produce an intellectual. An intellectual is a person whose interest in and preoccupation with the spiritual side of life are insistent and constant and not forced by external circumstances, even flying in the face of them. An intellectual is a person whose thought is nonimitative.
Aleksandr SolzhenitsynWe are all human, and our senses are quicker to prompt us than our reason. Every man gives off a scent, and that scent tells you how to act before your head does.
Aleksandr SolzhenitsynIn every life there is one particular event that is decisive for the entire person-for his fate, his convictions, his passions.
Aleksandr SolzhenitsynThe perception of the West as mostly a "knight of democracy" has been replaced with the disappointed belief that pragmatism, often cynical and selfish, lies at the core of Western policies. For many Russians it was a grave disillusion, a crushing of ideals.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn