I am truly horrified by modern man. Such absence of feeling, such narrowness of outlook, such lack of passion and information, such feebleness of thought.
Source: From the Other Shore, Epilogue 1849 (1855).
-- Alexander Herzen, (Apr 6 1812-1870), Russian author; He distrusted governments, was sceptical of western democratic forms, and had great faith in the power of peasants and other ordinary people to organise themselves.