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 HerzenCompassionate love may be strong. It sobs, it burns, then it wipes away its tears – and it does nothing.
Alexander HerzenYou can no more bridle passions with logic than you can justify them in the law courts. Passions are facts and not dogmas.
Alexander HerzenStrong drink stupefies a man and makes it possible for him to forget; it gives him an artificial cheeriness, an artificial excitement; and the pleasure of this state is increased by the low level of civilization and the narrow empty life to which these men are confined.
Alexander HerzenThe world will not know liberty until all that is religious and political is transformed into something simple and human and made susceptible to criticism and denial.
Alexander HerzenIt seems to me that you are solving a problem which goes beyond the limits of physiology in too simple a way. Physiology has realized its problem with fortitude, breaking man down into endless actions and counteractions and reducing him to a crossing, a vortex of reflex acts. Let it now permit sociology to restore him as a whole. Sociology will wrest man from the anatomical theatre and return him to history.
Alexander Herzen