Skip to content
quotesby

About this quote

What does it mean?
Lying has become so systemic that it supports the structure of the government itself.
In plain terms
Lies are central to how the state operates.
What can you take from it?
Recognize systemic lying as a tool of state power.

Where it applies

  • authoritarian regimes
  • propaganda
  • civil society

Putting it to work

  • demand transparency
  • question official narratives
  • protect truth tellers

Questions to consider

  • How does lying serve the state?
  • What happens when the state tells the truth?

Another view

Not all states rely equally on deception for stability.

More from Alexander Solzhenitsyn

  1. If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. B…

    Permalink to quote #8
  2. For us in Russia, communism is a dead dog, while, for many people in the West, it is still a living lion.

    Permalink to quote #10
  3. It is not because the truth is too difficult to see that we make mistakes. It may even lie on the surface; but we make mistakes because the easiest and most co…

    Permalink to quote #7

Related quotes

  1. But now, instead of discussion and argument, brute force rises up to the rescue of discomfited error, and crushes truth and right into the dust. 'Might makes r…

    Adin BallouAdin Ballou quote #1
  2. Who speaks the truth stabs Falsehood to the heart.

    James Russell LowellJames Russell Lowell quote #2
  3. It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothes. But the half-wit remains a half-wit, and the emperor…

    Neil GaimanNeil Gaiman quote #4