Alexander Herzen > Quotes

“Compassionate love may be strong. It sobs, it burns, then it wipes away its tears – and it does nothing.”
― Alexander Herzen

“We think the purpose of a child is to grow up because it does grow up. But its purpose is to play, to enjoy itself, to be a child. If we merely look to the end of the process, the purpose of life is death”
― Alexander Herzen, From the Other Shore & The Russian People and Socialism

“History is the autobiography of a madman.”
― Alexander Herzen

“I believe in nothing here, except a handful of people, a few ideas, and the fact that one cannot arrest movement. ”
― Alexander Herzen

“In general modern man has no solutions”
― Alexander Herzen

“Dünyada herkesin ilk planda yer alması olanaksızdır ve buna gerek de yoktur. Bana sorarsan, herkes kendi çevreciğinde kendi işini yapmalı derim. İş her yerde vardır.. Çalışan insan, vakti geldiğinde son uykusuna rahat yatar ve rahat uyur. Ön plana çıkmak, toplumda ileri gelen biri olma konusunda duyduğumuz şiddetli arzu, bizim henüz olgunlaşmadığımızı gösteriyor kanımca, kısmen de kendimize saygısızlığımızı... Olgunlaşmamak ve kendine saygı duymamak, insanı dış koşullara bağımlı kılar." (Herzen, Suçlu Kim?, sf. 247)”
― Alexander Herzen

“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

“What breadth, what beauty and power of human nature and development there must be in a woman to get over all palisades, all fences, within which she is held captive!”
― Alexander Herzen

“Life has taught me to think, but thinking has not taught me to live.”
― Alexander Herzen

“Дикая и воинственная, но республиканская и демократическая независимость Украины продержалась целые века до Петра І. Украинцы, беспрестанно мучимые поляками, турками и москалями, втянутые в бесконечную войну с крымскими татарами, никогда не падали. Малая Россия, добровольно присоединившись к Великой, выговорила себе значительные права. Царь Алексей поклялся их соблюдать. Петр І, под предлогом измены Мазепы, оставил лишь одну тень от этих привилегий, а Елисавета и Екатерина ввели в ней крепостное право. Бедная страна протестовала, но как могла она воспротивиться роковой лавине, которая катилась с севера до Черного моря и покрывала все, что носило русское имя, одним и тем же саваном одного и того же леденящего порабощения… Столетие крепостной зависимости не могло стереть всего, что было независимого и поэтического у этого славного народа. У него больше индивидуального развития, больше местной окраски, чем у нас; у нас злосчастный мундир безразлично покрывает всю народную жизнь. Наш народ не знает своей истории, тогда как у каждой деревни на Украине есть своя легенда. Русский народ только и помнит, что о Пугачеве да о 1812 годе.”
― Alexander Herzen, Die Russische Verschwörung und der Aufstand vom 14. December 1825: Eine Entgegnung auf die Schrift des Baron Modeste Korff "die Thronbesteigung Kaiser ... 1825" (Classic Reprint)

“The Russian system of justice and police is so haphazard, so inhuman, so arbitrary and corrupt, that a poor malefactor has more reason to fear his trial than his sentence. He is impatient for the time when he will be sent to Siberia; for his martyrdom comes to an end when his punishment begins.”
― Alexander Herzen, Childhood, Youth and Exile

“You can awaken people by dreaming their dreams more clearly than they dream themselves.”
― Alexander Herzen

“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

“We are not the doctors. We are the disease”
― Alexander Herzen

“Няма мисъл, която да не може да се изкаже просто и ясно.”
― Alexander Herzen

“Olay, suçlu olanların açığa çıkarılamaması nedeniyle Allah'a, dosya ise halledilmiş sayılarak arşive havale edildi." (Herzen, Suçlu Kim?, Tutanak)”
― Alexander Herzen

“To comprehend...the full sanctity, the full breadth and reality of the individual's rights and not to destroy society, not to shatter it into atoms, is the most difficult of tasks. It has never been resolved by any historical systems in the past; for that one needs a great maturity, which mankind has not yet attained.”
― Alexander Herzen

“To see oneself in print is one of the strongest artificial passions of an age corrupted by books. But it requires courage, nevertheless, to venture on a public exhibition of one's productions.”
― Alexander Herzen, Childhood, Youth and Exile

“Еще раз – без равенства нет брака в самом деле. Жена, исключенная из всех интересов, занимающих ее мужа, чуждая им, не делящая их, – наложница, экономка, нянька, но не жена в полном, в благородном значении слова.”
― Alexander Herzen, My Past and Thoughts

“On what principle are we to awake the sleeper? In the name of what shall the flabby personality, magnetised by trifles, be inspired, be made discontented with its present way of life of railways, telegraphs, newspapers and cheap goods?
Individuals do not step out of the ranks because there is not the occasion. For whom, for what, or against whom are they to come forward? The absence of energetic men is not a cause but a consequence”
― Alexander Herzen

“One must open men's eyes, not tear them out.”
― Alexander Herzen

“There is no universally valid idea from which man has not woven a rope to bind his own feet, and if possible, the feet of others as well, so that the free product of his creativity becomes a punitive power over him; no true, genuine relationship between people which they have not turned into mutual enslavement. Love, friendship, tribal loyalty, and finally even love of freedom have served as inexhaustible sources of moral oppression and servitude.... Humans are eternally on their knees before one or the other - the golden calf or duty imposed from outside.... It doesn't enter their heads that there is also something within them worthy of respect.”
― Alexander Herzen

“Да не одни ли безумные и достигают святости?”
― Александр Герцен, My Past and Thoughts: The Memoirs of Alexander Herzen, Volume 1

“Ideas that have outlived their day may hobble about the world for years, but it is hard for them ever to lead or dominate life. Such ideas never gain complete possession of a man, or they gain possession only of incomplete people.”
― Alexander Herzen

“Nothing is easier than to sit, like Father Matthew,[17] in the seat of judgement and condemn drunkenness, while you are yourself intoxicated with sobriety;”
― Aleksandr Herzen, The Memoirs of Alexander Herzen, Parts I and II: Enriched edition. Revolutionary Insight: A Memoir of 19th-Century Russia

“Петр III уничтожил застенок и тайную канцелярию.

Екатерина II уничтожила пытку.

Александр I еще раз ее уничтожил,”
― Alexander Herzen, My Past and Thoughts

“Където не е загинало словото, там и делото още не е загинало.”
― Alexander Herzen

“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, From the Other Shore & The Russian People and Socialism

“Together with a monopoly in everything else, the Government in Russia has assumed a monopoly of nonsense; ordering everyone to be silent, it chatters itself without ceasing.”
― Alexander Herzen, Childhood, Youth and Exile

“Прошло пятнадцать лет, «я жил в одном из лондонских захолустий, близ Примроз-Гиля, отделённый от всего мира далью, туманом и своей волей.”
― Alexander Herzen, Былое и думы: Части 1-3