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Laws to suppress tend to strengthen what they would prohibit. This is the fine point on which all legal professions of history have based their job security.

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
History
Tend
Jobs
Laws
Would
Based
Prohibit
Fine
Professions
Security
Suppress
Liberty
Strengthen
Law
Legal
Point
Profession

More quotes by 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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Everything in Italy that is particularly elegant and grand borders upon insanity and absurdity or at least is reminiscent of childhood.
Alexander Herzen
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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
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History is the autobiography of a madman.
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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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
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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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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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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
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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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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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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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Life has taught me to think, but thinking has not taught me to live.
Alexander Herzen
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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
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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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I have served one idea, marched under one banner - war against all imposed authority - against every kind of deprivation of freedom, in the name of the absolute independence of the individual.
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
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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.
Alexander Herzen
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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
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False gods must be repudiated, but that is not all: The reasons for their existence must be sought beneath their masks.
Alexander Herzen