Alexander Herzen
Alexander Herzen
Aleksandr Ivanovich Herzenwas a Russian writer and thinker known as the "father of Russian socialism" and one of the main fathers of agrarian populism. He is held responsible for creating a political climate leading to the emancipation of the serfs in 1861. His autobiography My Past and Thoughts, written with grace, energy, and ease, is often considered the best specimen of that genre in Russian literature. He also published the important social novel Who is to Blame?...
NationalityRussian
ProfessionJournalist
Date of Birth6 April 1812
CountryRussian Federation
Alexander Herzen quotes about
If nations always moved from one set of furnished rooms to another - and always into a better set - things might be easier, but the trouble is that there is no one to prepare the new rooms. The future is worse than the ocean - there is nothing there.
Would it be possible to stand still on one spot more majestically - while simulating a triumphant march forward - than it is done by the two English Houses of Parliament?
No one is to blame. It is neither their fault nor ours. It is the misfortune of being born when a whole world is dying.
What breadth, what beauty and power of human nature and development there must be in a woman to get over all the palisades, all the fences, within which she is held captive!
History is the autobiography of a madman.
There is nothing in the world more stubborn than a corpse: you can hit it, you can knock it to pieces, but you cannot convince it.
The Death of the contemporary forms of social order ought to gladden rather than trouble the soul. Yet what is frightening is that the departing world leaves behind it not an heir, but a pregnant widow. Between the death of the one and the birth of the other, much water will flow by, a long night of chaos and desolation will pass.
I am truly horrified by modern man. Such absence of feeling, such narrowness of outlook, such lack of passion and information, such feebleness of thought.
One must open men's eyes, not tear them out.
If nations always moved from one set of furnished rooms to another -- and always into a better set -- things might be easier, but the trouble is that there is no one to prepare the new rooms. The future is worse than the ocean -- there is nothing there. It will be what men and circumstances make it.
You can no more bridle passions with logic than you can justify them in the law courts. Passions are facts and not dogmas.
History knocks at a thousand gates at every moment, and the gatekeeper is chance. We shout into the mist for this one or that one to be opened for us, but through every gate are a thousand more. We need wit and courage to make our way while our way is making us.
All religions have based morality on obedience, that is to say, on voluntary slavery. That is why they have always been more pernicious than any political organization. For the latter makes use of violence, the former - of the corruption of the will.
Human development is a form of chronological unfairness, since late-comers are able to profit by the labors of their predecessors without paying the same price.