The internet is a great thing – but it is also the source of misinformation, disinformation, misquotes and outright lies. So when I saw this quote, my first impulse was to distrust it.

Yes, it sounded like something Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Russian writer and prophet would say. But did he?

My thought was probably not, that someone was borrowing his name to add gravitas to their thoughts. Being curious, I looked online.

I found the quote. Always attributed to Solzenhenitsyn. Usually with nothing more than that. I was curious as to where it was from. Then I found the following, attributed to Solzhenitsyn’s masterpiece, The Gulag Archipelago:

“To stand up for truth is nothing. For truth, you must sit in jail. You can resolve to live your life with integrity. Let your credo be this: Let the lie come into the world, let it even triumph. But not through me. The simple step of a courageous individual is not to take part in the lie. One word of truth outweighs the world. In keeping silent about evil, in burying it so deep within us that no sign of it appears on the surface, we are implanting it, and it will rise up a thousand fold in the future. When we neither punish nor reproach evildoers, we are not simply protecting their trivial old age, we are thereby ripping the foundations of justice from beneath new generations.”

Question answered. Or is it?

The website giving the reference didn’t offer a page number. So I couldn’t double check the quote against my paperback copy of the book sitting in my basement. But there are other formats.

Searching through an electronic copy of The Gulag Archipelago I cannot find this quote. Maybe the search engine missed it – but I tried different keywords, spending more time than I should on something I’m not getting paid for. I think it is safe to say it isn’t in the book.

More searching found someone claiming the quote was from a private letter Solzhenitsyn wrote – but once again no attribution was given. I think it is reasonable at this point to say “author unknown.”

I still think the words are worth considering, no matter who they come from. And if you know, please share that information.

We can’t always believe everything we see on the internet, but maybe we can provide an answer to this question.