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 HerzenThere 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 HerzenEverything in Italy that is particularly elegant and grand borders upon insanity and absurdity or at least is reminiscent of childhood.
Alexander HerzenLiberalism, austere in political trifles, has learned ever more artfully to unite a constant protest against the government with a constant submission to it.
Alexander HerzenScience even more than the Gospel teaches us humility. She cannot look down on anything, she does not know what superiority means, she despises nothing, never lies for the sake of a pose, and conceals nothing out of coquetry. She stops before the facts as an investigator, sometimes as a physician, never as an executioner, and still less with hostility and irony.
Alexander Herzen