Sorokin Quotes & Sayings

Nothing has changed in Russia since Ivan the Terrible when it comes to the divide between the people and the state. The state demands a sacred willingness to make sacrifices from the people. — Vladimir Sorokin

In Russia one can be as pure as can be and still lose everything in a flash and end up in prison. — Vladimir Sorokin

In Russia whenever you encounter a minor official, he lets you know that he is above you and that you depend on him. It is reflected in the superpower mentality that nourishes the Kremlin. An empire always demands sacrifices from its people. — Vladimir Sorokin

I am always surprised when I watch the weather report on German television. First they show the map of Europe and then the camera moves to the right. Then comes Kiev, then Moscow and then everything stops. This seems to be the West's view of us - of a wild Russia that begins past Moscow, a place one prefers not to see. This is a big mistake. The West must pay closer attention. — Vladimir Sorokin

The bureaucracy has grown such powerful roots in Russia, and corruption is so widespread, that people from opposition have no interest in changing anything. — Vladimir Sorokin

Germans, Frenchmen and Englishmen can say of themselves: "I am the state." I cannot say that. In Russia only the people in the Kremlin can say that. All other citizens are nothing more than human material with which they can do all kinds of things. — Vladimir Sorokin

I ask myself whether Russia is moving in the direction of democracy. I don't believe it is! Bit by bit, Russia is slipping back into an authoritarian empire. — Vladimir Sorokin

Man is a conscious, rational thinker and a supra-conscious creator genius. — Pitirim Sorokin

In Russia no one is surprised when an official accepts a bribe while at the same time portraying the state as some sacred entity to which the bourgeois should pay homage. This all sounds absurd. But for Russians it is completely normal. — Vladimir Sorokin

When I turn on the TV in Russia I see a general calmly claiming that our missiles are ahead of the latest American models by three five-year plans. It's a nightmare. We are creating a concept of the enemy, just as they did in the Soviet era. This is a giant step backward. — Vladimir Sorokin

[In-group exclusivism has] killed more human beings and destroyed more cities and villages than all the epidemics, hurricanes, storms, floods, earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions taken together. It has brought upon mankind more suffering than any other catastrophe. — Pitirim Sorokin

Either the conscious intellect is impotent, or is not sufficiently strong, or is not the factor positively connected with altruistic phenomenon generally or their sublime form particularly. — Pitirim Sorokin

In a devastating critique, the sociologist Pitirim Sorokin once showed that if Terman had simply put together a randomly selected group of children from the same kinds of family backgrounds as the Termites - and — Malcolm Gladwell

My television teaches me that everything was wonderful in the Soviet Union. According to the programs I watch, the KGB and apparatchiks were angels, and the Stalin era was so festive that the heroes of the day must still be celebrated today. — Vladimir Sorokin

Only the power of unbounded love practiced in regard to all human beings can defeat the forces of interhuman strife, and can prevent the pending extermination of man by man on this planet. Without love, no armament, no war, no diplomatic machinations, no coercive police force, no school education, no economic or political measures, not even hydrogen bombs can prevent the pending catastrophe. — Pitirim Sorokin

In Russia only those who are loyal to the people in power can become wealthy. — Vladimir Sorokin

Controversy chases the Russian writer Vladimir Sorokin the way a dog chases a stick. — Ken Kalfus

The word "people" is unpleasant to me. The phrase "Soviet people" was drummed into us from childhood on. I love concrete people, enlightened people who live conscious lives and do not simply sit there and vegetate. To love the people you have to be the general secretary of the Communist Party or an absolute dictator. — Vladimir Sorokin

The worst thing that can happen to Russia is indifference in the West - that is, if it were interested in nothing but oil and gas. — Vladimir Sorokin

Orthodox churches, autocracy and national traditions are supposed to form a new national ideology in Russia. This would mean that Russia would be overtaken by its past, and our past would be our future. — Vladimir Sorokin

Love is the supreme value around which all moral values can be integrated into one ethical system valid for the whole of humanity. — Pitirim Sorokin

Are there quantitative aspects to the phenomena of war that can be counted? Evidently! — Pitirim Sorokin

I'm not a prophet or a teacher, I just ask questions. I don't think a writer should be a teacher, but should know how to pose the questions and explain the problems. — Vladimir Sorokin

Everyone in Russia must awaken the citizen within himself. — Vladimir Sorokin

Putin likes to quote a sentence from Czar Alexander III, who said that Russian has only two allies - the army and the navy. As a citizen, this makes me sit up and take notice. This is a concept of self-imposed isolation, a defense strategy that sees Russia surrounded by enemies. — Vladimir Sorokin

The most effective and most accessible way to acquire the maximum of constructive power is to love truly and wisely. — Pitirim Sorokin

The Khodorkovsky case is typical of the "oprichnina" - the system of oppression. — Vladimir Sorokin

The citizen lives in each of us. In the days of Brezhnev, Andropov, Gorbachev and Yeltsin, I was constantly trying to suppress the responsible citizen in me. I told myself that I was, after all, an artist. — Vladimir Sorokin

As a storyteller I was influenced by the Moscow underground, where it was common to be apolitical. — Vladimir Sorokin

The resort to human flesh, often after months of ever-increasing hunger pangs, appeared to be an animallike reaction without painful emotional overtones. — Pitirim Sorokin

In Russia there are special people who are permitted to do anything. They are the sacrificial priests of power. Anyone who is not a member of this group has no clout with the state. — Vladimir Sorokin

medhermeneutical — Vladimir Sorokin

I have Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin to thank that a Russian writer can not only write anything he wants, but also publish it. — Vladimir Sorokin

The West should be even more vocal in insisting that the Russians respect human rights. — Vladimir Sorokin

The Russian writer Vladimir Nabokov once said: In a Democracy, portraits of a nation's leader should never exceed the size of a postage stamp. That won't happen so quickly in Russia. — Vladimir Sorokin

Hate begets hate, violence engenders violence, hypocrisy is answered by hypocrisy, war generates war, and love creates love. — Pitirim Sorokin

As a child I perceived violence as a sort of natural law. In the totalitarian Soviet Union, oppression held everything together. It was the sinister energy of our country. — Vladimir Sorokin

Any Organized social group is always a stratified social body. There has not been and does not exist any permanent social group which is "flat" and in which all members are equal. — Pitirim Sorokin