"Literature transmits incontrovertible condensed experience... from generation to generation. In this way literature becomes the living memory of a nation"
- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
About this Quote
This quote by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn speaks with the power of literature in protecting the collective memory of a nation. Literature is a method of capturing and conveying the experiences of a people, both excellent and bad, and passing them below generation to generation. It is a way of protecting the history of a country, and of ensuring that the lessons of the past are not forgotten. Literature is an effective tool for comprehending the past, and for learning from it. It is a method of getting in touch with the experiences of our forefathers, and of comprehending the struggles and accomplishments of our nation. Literature is a living memory, and it is through literature that we can gain from the past and build a much better future.
"A lawyer without history or literature is a mechanic, a mere working mason; if he possesses some knowledge of these, he may venture to call himself an architect"
"Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it"