Liberalism, austere in political trifles, has learned ever more artfully to unite a constant protest against the government with a constant submission to it.
—Alexander Herzen
Topics: Liberalism
Slavery is the first step towards civilization. In order to develop it is necessary that things should be much better for some and much worse for others, then those who are better off can develop at the expense of others.
—Alexander Herzen
Topics: Slavery
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.
—Alexander Herzen
Topics: Tradition
This socialism will develop in all its phases until it reaches its own extremes and absurdities. Then once again a cry of denial will break from the titanic chest of the revolutionary minority and again a mortal struggle will begin, in which socialism will play the role of contemporary conservatism and will be overwhelmed in the subsequent revolution, as yet unknown to us.
—Alexander Herzen
Topics: Socialism, Communism
False gods must be repudiated, but that is not all: The reasons for their existence must be sought beneath their masks.
—Alexander Herzen
We have wasted our spirit in the regions of the abstract and general just as the monks let it wither in the world of prayer and contemplation.
—Alexander Herzen
Topics: Revolutionaries, Revolutions, Revolution
Life has taught me to think, but thinking has not taught me to live.
—Alexander Herzen
Topics: Life and Living
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?
—Alexander Herzen
Topics: Parliament
Unaware of the absurdity of it, we introduce our own petty household rules into the economy of the universe for which the life of generations, peoples, of entire planets, has no importance in relation to the general development.
—Alexander Herzen
Topics: Assumptions, Theory
People who have realized that this is a dream imagine that it is easy to wake up, and are angry with those who continue sleeping, not considering that the whole world that environs them does not permit them to wake. Life proceeds as a series of optical illusions, artificial needs and imaginary sensations.
—Alexander Herzen
Topics: Illusion
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.
—Alexander Herzen
Topics: Reform, Correction
We could hardly believe that after so many ordeals, after all the trials of modern skepticism, there was still so much left in our souls to destroy.
—Alexander Herzen
Topics: Disillusion, Expectation
Science, which cuts its way through the muddy pond of daily life without mingling with it, casts its wealth to right and left, but the puny boatmen do not know how to fish for it.
—Alexander Herzen
Topics: Scientists, Science
A generation which has passed through the shop has absorbed standards and ambitions which are not of those of spaciousness, and cannot get away from them. Everything with them is done as though for sale, and they naturally have in view the greatest possible benefit, profit and that end of the stuff that will make the best show.
—Alexander Herzen
Topics: Business
It is possible to lead astray an entire generation, to strike it blind, to drive it insane, to direct it towards a false goal. Napoleon proved this.
—Alexander Herzen
You can no more bridle passions with logic than you can justify them in the law courts. Passions are facts and not dogmas.
—Alexander Herzen
Topics: Passion
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.
—Alexander Herzen
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!
—Alexander Herzen
Topics: Women
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.
—Alexander Herzen
Topics: Religion
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.
—Alexander Herzen
Topics: Progress
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.
—Alexander Herzen
Topics: Nations, Nation, Nationalism, Nationality
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
- Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel German Man of Letters
- Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach German Philosopher
- Karl Marx German Philosopher, Economist
- John Rawls American Philosopher
- Pierre Bayle French Philosopher
- Karl Popper Austrian-born British Philosopher
- Maximilien Robespierre French Revolutionary
- Naomi Klein Canadian Author, Activist
- Christopher Hitchens Anglo-American Social Critic
- Zeno of Citium Greek Philosopher
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