“Oh, Western freedom-loving “left-wing” thinkers! Oh, left-wing labourists! Oh, American, German and French progressive students! All of this is still not enough for you. The whole book has been useless for you. You will understand everything immediately, when you yourself — “hands behind the back” — toddle into our Archipelago.”
– Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago (via liberumarbitriumindifferentiae)
“In prison, both in solitary confinement and outside solitary too, a human being confronts his grief face to face. This grief is a mountain, but he has to find space inside himself for it, to familiarize himself with it, to digest it, and it him. This is the highest form of moral effort, which has always ennobled every human being. A duel with years and with walls constitutes moral work and a path upward (if you can climb it).”
– Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago (via liberumarbitriumindifferentiae)
“basically being massively cynical and unable to process complex feelings and emotions and generally being cold and unfeeling.”
– Someone described himself, and myself.
“There is a simple truth which one can learn only through suffering; in war not victories are blessed but defeats. Governments need victories and the people need defeats. Victory gives rise to the desire for more victories. But after a defeat it is freedom that men desire- and usually attain. A people need defeat just as an individual needs suffering and misfortune; they compel the deepening of the inner life and generate a spiritual upsurge.”
– Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago (via gatheringbones)
“Don’t be afraid of misfortune, and do not yearn for happiness; it is, after all, all the same: the bitter doesn’t last forever, and the sweet never fills the cup to overflowing. It is enough if you don’t freeze in the cold and if thirst and hunger don’t claw at your insides. If your back isn’t broken, if your feet can walk, if both arms can bend, if both eyes can see, if both ears hear, then whom should you envy? And why? Our envy of others devours us most of all. Rub your eyes and purify your heart -and prize above all else in the world those who love you and who wish you well. Do not hurt them or scold them, and never part from any of them in anger; after all, you simply do not know: it may be your last act before your arrest, and that will be how you are imprinted on their memory.”
– Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago 1918-1956 (via ibong-adarna)
Last week, some friends and I visited some abandoned/haunted properties in the Charlotte and Statesville areas. Here are some of the pictures! There’s some silly ones in here just for kicks. Sorry, Tia and Travis. ;D
Pic #5 gave me chills.
Asylum for the Insane by katherinecaprio
A friend in a tree outside Ann Arbor’s mysterious abandoned post-modern mansion.
“I say let the world go to hell, but I should always have my tea.”
– ― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Notes from Underground (via vorbadilitantului)
