words from Dostoevsky

The Brothers Karamazov
Book IV: The Russian Monk
Chapter 2:

(c) Recollections of Father Zossima's Youth before he became a monk. The Duel
"...I remembered my brother Markel and what he said on his death-bed to his servants: 'My dear ones, why do you wait on me, why do you love me, am I worth your waiting on me?' ... He had said, 'Mother, my little heart, in truth we are each responsible to all for all, it's only that men don't know this. If they knew it, the world would be paradise at once.'" (155)

" 'Look around at you at the gifts of God, the clear sky, the pure air, the tender grass, the birds; nature is beautiful and sinless, and we, only we, are sinful and foolish, and we don't understand that life is heaven for we have only to understand that and it will at once be fulfilled in all its beauty, we shall embrace each other and weep.' I would have said more but I could not; my voice broke with the sweetness and youthful gladness of it, and there was such bliss in my heart as I had never known before in my life." (156)


(d) The Mysterious Visitor
" 'Believe me, this dream, as you call it, will come to pass without doubt; it will come, but not now, for every process has its law. It's a spiritual, psychological process. To transform the world, to recreate it afresh, men must turn into another path psychologically. Until you have become really, in actual fact, a brother to everyone, brotherhood will not come to pass. No sort of scientific teaching, no kind of common interest, will ever teach men to share property and privileges with equal consideration for all. Everyone will think his share too small and they will be always envying, complaining and attacking one another. You ask when it will come to pass; it will come to pass . . . this terrible individualism must inevitably have an end, and all will suddenly understand how unnaturally they are separated from one another. It will be the spirit of the time, and people will marvel that they have sat so long in darkness without seeing the light. And then the sign of the Son of Man will be seen in the heavens...But, until then, we must keep the banner flying. Sometimes even if he has to do it alone, and his conduct seems to be crazy, a man must set an example, and so draw men's souls out of their solitude, and spur them to some act of brotherly love, that the great idea may not die.' " (158-59)

~Dostoevsky, 1880 (1952)