Alexander Herzen

Who was Alexander Herzen?

Alexander Ivanovich Herzen was 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?.

Famous Quotes:

• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.