Alliluyeva Svetlana Quotes & Sayings

Trees and flowers were often more meaningful to me than people. They always helped me, consoled me, giving the soul a chance to believe once more than the world was beautiful and sensible, that the mad absurdities and cruelties of men were against the laws of Nature and the Universal Mind; that sooner or later violence would suffer utter defeat on this Earth. No words collected in books were more effectively convincing to me than foliage, clouds, rippling waters, rain. — Svetlana Alliluyeva

I am a democrat [proponent of democracy] because I believe in the Fall of Man.
I think most people are democrats for the opposite reason. A great deal of democratic enthusiasm descends from the ideas of people like Rousseau, who believed in democracy because they thought mankind so wise and good that every one deserved a share in the government.
The danger of defending democracy on those grounds is that they're not true ... I find that they're not true without looking further than myself. I don't deserve a share in governing a hen-roost. Much less a nation ...
The real reason for democracy is just the reverse. Mankind is so fallen that no man can be trusted with unchecked power over his fellows. Aristotle said that some people were only fit to be slaves. I do not contradict him. But I reject slavery because I see no men fit to be masters. — C.S. Lewis

History is a stern judge. — Svetlana Alliluyeva

Moscow seethes and bubbles and gasps for air. It's always thirsting for something new, the newest events, the latest sensation. Everyone wants to be the first to know. It's the rhythm of life today. — Svetlana Alliluyeva

Perhaps power had to be tended, like Tieren said, but not all things grew in gardens. Plenty of plants grew wild. And Lila had always thought of herself more as a weed than a rose bush. — Victoria Schwab

God grants an easy death only to the just. — Svetlana Alliluyeva

Go to meet destiny halfway and destiny will come to your assistance. — Svetlana Alliluyeva

The American spring is like the country itself: abundant, rich, flowing over you like a full tide ... Azaleas were suddenly ablaze. White dogwoods stood like brides in the wood - these trees of all colors were new to me; one does not meet them in Europe, and dogwood cannot even be transplanted to other continents. White and pink magnolias, yellowish rhododendrons, all of them lived happily side by side with our ordinary lilacs and lilies of the valley - the Russian symbols of spring. — Svetlana Alliluyeva

On, those ever-changing moods of Moscow! How swiftly they go from black to white, from one extreme to another, from friendship to accusations, from adoration to hatred, from the permissive 'da' to that annihilating 'nyet.' Those eternal swings from a thaw to a freeze, whims that disregard their own rules, norms, and regulations! — Svetlana Alliluyeva

You have only one friend in this world, yourself. — Svetlana Alliluyeva

Moscow, breathing fire like a human volcano with its smouldering lava of passion, ambition and politics, its hurly-burly of meetings and entertainment ... Moscow seethes and bubbles and gasps for air. It's always thirsting for something new ... — Svetlana Alliluyeva

You see 6,000 times more tech companies in San Francisco than you see in Seattle. All the money is in San Francisco when you look at the venture fund maps. The PR is in San Francisco. The centricity of the industry is in San Francisco. — Robert Scoble

For twenty-seven years I was witness to the spiritual deterioration of my own father, watching day after day how everything human in him left him and how gradually he turned into a grim monument to his own self ... — Svetlana Alliluyeva

Why did Americans smile so often? Was it out of politeness or because of a gay disposition? Whatever it was, I for one had never been spoiled with smiles. I found it very pleasant! ... I was beginning to understand that with Americans smiling was, as with healthy infants, a natural need. And my reaction was to respond in the same way. — Svetlana Alliluyeva

Nowhere have I found words more powerful than those in the Psalms. Their fervid poetry cleanses one, gives one strength, brings hope in moments of darkness. Makes one look critically into oneself, convict oneself, and wash one's heart clean with one's own tears. It is the ever-burning fire of love, of gratitude, humility, and truth. — Svetlana Alliluyeva

It is human nature that rules the world, not governments and regimes. — Svetlana Alliluyeva

It became clear to the whole world that a totalitarian regime could neither accuse nor transform itself: suicide was not in its nature, it could only kill others. — Svetlana Alliluyeva

Everything on our tormented earth that is alive and breathes, that blossoms and bears fruit, lives only by virtue of and in the name of Truth and Good. — Svetlana Alliluyeva

As a result of half a century of Soviet rule people have been weaned from a belief in human kindness. — Svetlana Alliluyeva

On the boardwalk the arcade jukebox plays all night surrounded by teenagers
sometimes twenty bodies deep, bare-skinned and full of energy for the music, for one another, for life, for the little bit of freedom they taste in the salt air and their skin. My father finds his place in this crowd. They are a force together. They don't do drugs. They don't drink. But they do music, and their power comes from their numbers and the thrill of being young on the beach at night. — Laura Schenone

When you have once gained sight, it is impossible to feign blindness. — Svetlana Alliluyeva

A sense of religion is something one is born with, like a musical ear. One can develop it, cultivate it, enrich it, but if one hasn't got its seed to begin with, no powers of the intellect, no sophistication of 'evidence' can awaken it. — Svetlana Alliluyeva

All large cities are alike at night. — Svetlana Alliluyeva

You're only as weak as you let yourself become, and you're only as strong as you allow yourself to be. — Daniel Hansen

I like old people, just as I like old trees: in their shadow there is freshness and peace, one admires them, and around them everything is so calm. — Svetlana Alliluyeva

He suddenly opened his eyes and looked at everyone in the room. It was a terrible gaze, mad or maybe furious and full of fear of death ... Then something incomprehensible and frightening happened ... He suddenly lifted his left hand as though he were pointing to something above and bringing down a curse on us all ... The next moment, after a final effort, the spirit wrenched itself free of the flesh. — Svetlana Alliluyeva

To honor the legacy of veterans and the democratic principles they fought for, I am glad that I introduced the Korean War Veterans Recognition Act which was enacted in 2009. — Charles B. Rangel

If there is a form of government, then, whose principle and foundation is virtue, will not every sober man acknowledge it better calculated to promote the general happiness than any other form? — John Adams

The one good thing about not seeing you is that I can write you letters. — Svetlana Alliluyeva

When you see yourself on video, you and your friends spending time on vacation, and they take a video, and then you see it, it's really disturbing. — Marion Cotillard

We are having hot lesbian sex ... and by sex we mean tea but it's still hot. — Ananymous

Today, as we look back on the history of our nation and take note of how far we have come as a people, we are reminded that we owe a great debt to those who fought valiantly for the freedoms that we easily take for granted. — Sam Brownback

For Ripley I learned to play some songs on the piano, and I never really played them again. — Matt Damon

Religion means a binding. If a man does not feel himself a part of the Universe, and does not hear its pulse, he is not religious. But once he has heard that pulse, he will be hearing it always. Every day his life will replenish itself from this inexhaustible source, eternal and powerful as the sun. — Svetlana Alliluyeva

The melody of a religious feeling is the music of life itself. To those who do not hear it I could not explain what it sounds like ... If the spark isn't smoldering somewhere inside one, no efforts can ever bring it into existence. Water cannot catch fire. — Svetlana Alliluyeva

In the final exam in the Chaucer course we were asked why he used certain verbal devices, certain adjectives, why he had certain characters behave in certain ways. And I wrote, 'I don't think Chaucer had any idea why he did any of these things. That isn't the way people write.'
I believe this as strongly now as I did then. Most of what is best in writing isn't done deliberately. — Madeleine L'Engle