The Isaiah Berlin Virtual Library

Russian Thinkers

Unreferenced quotations
The additional references previously listed on this page have now been incorporated into the second edition of the book (London etc., 2008: Penguin). This page will now be used to supply any further references that come to light (a few ostensible quotations, listed here, are still proving elusive). It remains the case that several of the previously unreferenced quotations turn out to be somewhat free, so that the original should be checked by those who wish to borrow the quotations and use them reasonably accurately.
Page in first/second edition
(Alleged) quotation
Reference
18/20–1 [Herzen, 1860s] To those who lived through it, it seemed that this dark tunnel was destined to lead nowhere. Nevertheless, the effect of these years was by no means wholly negative.

97/110 [Herzen] traps called oases of liberty
160
[Pushkin on Belinsky] a queer character who for some extraordinary reason appears to adore me
183/209–10 [? on Belinsky] always in a dither of excitement, always frantic, always hurrying
221/253
[The purpose of the revolution was to establish absolute equality, not only economic and social, but] physical and physiological[: afterwards the State would swiftly] liquidate [itself].

226/258
[Herzen] Human development is a form of chronological unfairness, since late-comers are able to profit by the labours of their predecessors without paying the same price.

232/265–6
[S. M. Kravchinsky] Socialism bounced off people like peas from a wall. They listen to our people as they do to the priest. [the first sentence is from a letter to Vera Zasulich of 24 July 1878, in E. Korol´chuk, ‘Iz perepiski S. M. Kravchinskogo’, Krasnyi arkhiv 19 (1926 No 6), 196; but the second?]

292/337
[Turgenev believed in slow progress, made only by minorities,] if only they do not destroy each other.
295/341
[Turgenev] homoeopathic injections of science and culture [the preceding part of the quotation is from his letter to A. P. Filosofova of 11 September 1874]



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