"As one of his eternal, disastrous traits, the human being is incapable of grasping the ratio of an object to its price. For a cheap glass of vodka, a soldier is roused to attack in a war not his own, and lays down his life. In the same way, the zek, for those popper's handouts, slips off a log, gets dumped in the icy freshet of a northern river, or kneads clay for mudhuts barefoot in icy water, and because of this, those feet are never going to reach the land of freedom."
- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago 1918 - 1956
- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago 1918 - 1956
