At war a Russian man puts on a white shirt. He may live in sin, but he dies like a saint.
Vasily GrossmanThe divine impeccability of the immortal [Soviet] State turned out not only to have suppressed individual human beings but also to have defended them, to have comforted them in their weakness, to have justified their insignificance. The State had taken on its own shoulders the entire weight of responsibility; it had liberated people from the chimera of conscience.
Vasily GrossmanThe history of humanity is the history of human freedom...Freedom is not, as Engels thought, "the recognition of necessity." Freedom is the opposite of necessity. Freedom is necessity overcome. Progress is, in essence, the progress of human freedom. Yes, and after all, life itself is freedom. The evolution of life is the evolution of freedom.
Vasily GrossmanI don't want you to be young and beautiful. I only want one thing. I want you to be kind-hearted - and not just towards cats and dogs.
Vasily GrossmanThere is a deep and undeniable sadness in all this: whenever we see the dawn of an eternal good that will never be overcome by evil โ an evil that is itself eternal but will never succeed in overcoming good โ whenever we see this dawn, the blood of old people and children is always shed.
Vasily Grossman