Vasily Grossman Quotes

• Good men and bad men alike are capable of weakness. The difference is simply that a bad man will be proud all his life of one good deed - while an honest man is hardly aware of his good acts, but remembers a single sin for years on end.

  Vasily Grossman

  Honesty, Men, Years

  55 Copy quote

• Human history is not the battle of good struggling to overcome evil. It is a battle fought by a great evil struggling to crush a small kernel of human kindness.

  Vasily Grossman

  Crush, Kindness, Struggle

  "Zbigniew Herbert, Vasily Grossman, and 'a small kernel of human kindness'" by Cynthia Haven, Stanford University blog, bookhaven.stanford.edu. August 2018.

  22 Copy quote

• In the cruel and terrible time in which our generation has been condemned to live on this earth, we must never make peace with evil. We must never become indifferent to others or undemanding of ourselves.

  Vasily Grossman

  Our Generation, Evil, Generations

  12 Copy quote

• There are people whose souls have just withered, people who are willing to go along with anything evil - anything so as not to be suspected of disagreeing with whoever is in power.

  Vasily Grossman

  People, Evil, Soul

  4 Copy quote

• There was something terrible, but also something sad and melancholy in this long cry uttered by the Russian infantry as they staged an attack. As it crossed the cold water, it lost its fervour. Instead of valour or gallantry, you could hear the sadness of a soul parting with everything that it loved, calling on its nearest and dearest to wake up, to lift their head from their pillows and hear for the last time the voice of a father, a husband, a son or a brother...

  Vasily Grossman

  Brother, Husband, Father

  13 Copy quote

• Human groupings have one main purpose: to assert everyone’s right to be different, to be special, to think, feel and live in his or her own way. People join together in order to win or defend this right. But this is where a terrible, fateful error is born: the belief that these groupings in the name of a race, a God, a party or a State are the very purpose of life and not simply a means to an end. No! The only true and lasting meaning of the struggle for life lies in the individual, in his modest peculiarities and in his right to these peculiarities.

  Vasily Grossman

  Lying, Struggle, Party

  9 Copy quote

• Chekhov said: let's put God - and all these grand progressive ideas - to one side. Let's begin with man; let's be kind and attentive to the individual man - whether he's a bishop, a peasant, an industrial magnate, a convict in the Sakhalin Islands, or a waiter in a restaurant. Let's begin with respect, compassion, and love for the individual - or we'll never get anywhere.

  Vasily Grossman

  Men, Compassion, Islands

  Vasily Grossman (2011). “Life And Fate (Vintage Classic Russians Series)”, p.267, Random House

  16 Copy quote

• And in this silence of the dumb and these speeches of the blind, in this medly of people bound together by the same grief, terror and hope, in this hatred and lack of understanding between men who spoke the same tongue, you could see much of the tragedy of the twentieth century.

  Vasily Grossman

  Grief, Men, People

  Vasily Grossman (2011). “Life And Fate (Vintage Classic Russians Series)”, p.17, Random House

  10 Copy quote

• The 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 Grossman

  Essence, Opposites, Humanity

  9 Copy quote

• The 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 Grossman

  Taken, Responsibility, People

  4 Copy quote

• Man and fascism cannot co-exist. If fascism conquers, man will cease to exist and there will remain only man-like creatures that have undergone an internal transformation. But if man, man who is endowed with reason and kindness, should conquer, then Fascism must perish, and those who have submitted to it will once again become people.

  Vasily Grossman

  Kindness, Men, People

  8 Copy quote

• I 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 Grossman

  Beautiful, Dog, Cat

  Vasily Grossman (2011). “Life And Fate (Vintage Classic Russians Series)”, p.120, Random House

  8 Copy quote

• The longer a nation's history, the more wars, invasions, wanderings, and periods of captivity it has seen-the greater the diversity of its faces.

  Vasily Grossman

  War, Diversity, Captivity

  9 Copy quote

• Ivan tells Anna: "I used to imagine that being embraced by a woman . . . as something so wonderful that it would make me forget everthing . . . [But] happiness, it turns out, will be to share with you the burden I can't share with anyone else.

  Vasily Grossman

  Wonderful, Forget, Imagine

  7 Copy quote

• I don't believe in your "Good". I believe in human kindness.

  Vasily Grossman

  Kindness, Believe, Humans

  4 Copy quote

• I have written only what I have thought through, felt through and suffered through.

  Vasily Grossman

  Felt, Written

  Vasily Grossman (2011). “Life And Fate (Vintage Classic Russians Series)”, p.20, Random House

  7 Copy quote

• The sea was not freedom; it was a likeness of freedom, a symbol of freedom...How splendid freedom must be if a mere likeness of it, a mere reminder of it, is enough to fill a man with happiness.

  Vasily Grossman

  Men, Sea, Enough

  6 Copy quote

• At war a Russian man puts on a white shirt. He may live in sin, but he dies like a saint.

  Vasily Grossman

  War, Men, White

  Vasily Grossman (2010). “A Writer At War: Vasily Grossman with the Red Army 1941-1945”, p.95, Random House

  13 Copy quote

• Thousands of people are being buried and no one attends the funerals,' said one of the soldiers. 'In peacetime it's the other way round: one coffin and a hundred people carrying flowers.

  Vasily Grossman

  Flower, People, Funeral

  Vasily Grossman (2011). “Life And Fate (Vintage Classic Russians Series)”, p.135, Random House

  4 Copy quote

• There's nothing more difficult than saying goodbye to a house where you've suffered.

  Vasily Grossman

  Goodbye, Saying Goodbye, House

  7 Copy quote

• There 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 – an evil that is itself eternal but will never succeed in overcoming good – whenever we see this dawn, the blood of old people and children is always shed.

  Vasily Grossman

  Children, Sadness, Blood

  4 Copy quote

• Humanity will live as long as there are humans.

  Vasily Grossman

  Long, Humanity, Humans

  4 Copy quote

• He was endowed with the extraordinary powers of endurance characteristic of madmen and simpletons.

  Vasily Grossman

  Endurance, Characteristics, Madmen

  Vasily Grossman (2011). “Life And Fate (Vintage Classic Russians Series)”, p.11, Random House

  7 Copy quote

• Why do people have memories? It would be easier to die - anything to stop remembering.

  Vasily Grossman

  Memories, People, Would Be

  4 Copy quote

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