"It is both painful and shameful to be a slave. But it is even more distressing and painful to acknowledge that our slavery is necessary and normal and that it is a natural phenomenon. A great sin rests on our souls. We have inherited it but are not responsible for it. We are keeping our inheritance unjustly. Like a heavy rock it pushes us to the bottom, and with it around our necks we cannot swim. WE are slaves because our forefathers sold their human dignity for inhuman rights which we now enjoy. We are slaves because we are the masters. We are slaves because we are nobles, that is, nobles without any faith in our tights. We are slaves because we hold our brothers in slavery. They are our equals in birth, blood and language. We will never enjoy freedom as long as the wretched conditions of serfdom oppress us and as long as the hideous shameful, and totally unjust slavery of our peasants exists among us."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
"Appeal to Nobles", (June 1853), Imperial Russia, A Source Book 1700-1917
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Alexander_Herzen
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Alexander Herzen
Aleksandr Ivanovich Herzen [Алекса́ндр Ива́нович Ге́рцен] (April 6 1812 – January 21 1870) was a Russian writer and thinker known as the "father of Russian socialism" and one of the main fathers of agrarian populism (being an ideological ancestor of the Narodniki, Socialist-Revolutionaries, Trudoviks and the agrarian American Populist Party). With his writings, many composed while exiled in London, he attempted to influence the situation in Russia, contributing to a political climate that led to
11 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Alexander Herzen →
Related Quotes
"There is no art more akin to mysticism than architecture. Abstract, geometrical, musical and yet dumb, passionless, i…"
"Personal freedom is a magnificent thing; by it and by it alone can a nation achieve its true freedom. Man must respec…"
"The peasants will be emancipated if there is a future for Rus and for the Slavic world."
"An empire that cannot distance itself from such a gruesome sin that so deeply affects its internal structure does not…"
"Без равенства нет брака. Жена, исключённая из всех интересов, занимающих её мужа, чуждая им, не делящая их, — наложни…"
"We were a small group of college friends who kept together after our course was over, and continued to share the same…"
"I have a sincere pity for any nation where old heads grow on young shoulders; youth is a matter, not only of years, b…"
"A religion of life had come to replace a religion of penance and emaciation, of fasting and prayer. The crucified bod…"
"Socialism and rationalism are to this day the touchstones of humanity, the rocks which lie in the course of revolutio…"
"The world carnage put an end to the golden era when a Bakunin and a Herzen, a Marx and a Kropotkin, a Malatesta and a…"