Alexander Herzen Quotes
The 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.
Herzen, Alexander. From the Other Shore. Translated by Moura Budberg, Oxford University Press, 1979.
On the surface, this reform seems to contradict Sharia – Islamic religious law -- where religion permeates all of politics.
Toynbee was very active in attempting to reform the Church of England.
Carlile was one of the heroes of freedom of the press. He was jailed frequently for publishing anti government or anti Church of England criticisms, as were his wife and sister. The government grew so desperate trying to censor his publications that they placed a high minimum price on the sale of all newspapers assuring that the average citizen could not afford to buy the “seditious and blasphemous material.” In addition to press freedom he was an early reformer for birth control, religious freedom, women's suffrage and rights (which he called for in the 1820s), and against child labor.
A man who won a scholarship wanted to use it to study for the ministry. The court ruled that if he did, state money would help to establish his religion.
Alexander Ivanovich Herzen 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 the emancipation of the serfs in 1861. He published the important social novel Who is to Blame? (1845–46). His autobiography, My Past and Thoughts (written 1852–1870), is often considered one of the best examples of that genre in Russian literature.
