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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

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Alexander Herzen
Age: 57 †
Born: 1812
Born: March 25
Died: 1870
Died: January 9
Autobiographer
Journalist
Literary Critic
Opinion Journalist
Pedagogue
Philosopher
Politician
Prosaist
Teacher
Writer
Moscow
Russian SFSR
A. H.
Gertsen
Alexander Herzen
Human
Profit
Humans
Labor
Comers
Without
Late
Chronological
Development
Unfairness
Progress
Labors
Since
Predecessors
Form
Paying
Able
Price

More quotes by Alexander Herzen

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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
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I believe what I write to be the truth...every man who is not indifferent to the truth has a weakness for spreading it about.
Alexander Herzen
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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
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Compassionate love may be strong. It sobs, it burns, then it wipes away its tears – and it does nothing.
Alexander Herzen
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Modern Western thought will pass into history and be incorporated in it, will have its influence and its place, just as our body will pass into the composition of grass, of sheep, of cutlets, and of men.
Alexander Herzen
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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
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The liberty of the individual is the greatest thing of all, it is on this and this alone that the true will of the people can develop.
Alexander Herzen
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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
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One must open men's eyes, not tear them out.
Alexander Herzen
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I believe in nothing here, except a handful of people, a few ideas, and the fact that one cannot arrest movement.
Alexander Herzen
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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
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[T]he departing world leaves behind... not an heir, but a pregnant widow.
Alexander Herzen
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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
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Life has taught me to think, but thinking has not taught me to live.
Alexander Herzen
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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
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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.
Alexander Herzen
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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
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To build a city where it is impossible to build a city is madness in itself, but to build there one of the most elegant and grandest of cities is the madness of genius.
Alexander Herzen
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History is the autobiography of a madman.
Alexander Herzen
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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