“ One mustn’t spend one’s whole life on the heights of one’s own fancy. ”
Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Demons (1872). copy citation
| Author | Fyodor Dostoyevsky |
|---|---|
| Source | Demons |
| Topic | height life |
| Date | 1872 |
| Language | English |
| Reference | |
| Note | Translated by Constance Garnett in 1916 |
| Weblink | http://www.gutenberg.org/files/8117/8117-h/8117-h.htm |
Context
“They cry out that they’re communists, but what I say is that we must appreciate them and mustn’t be hard on them. I read everything now—the papers, communism, the natural sciences—I get everything because, after all, one must know where one’s living and with whom one has to do. One mustn’t spend one’s whole life on the heights of one’s own fancy. I’ve come to the conclusion, and adopted it as a principle, that one must be kind to the young people and so keep them from the brink. Believe me, Varvara Petrovna, that none but we who make up good society can by our kindness and good influence keep them from the abyss towards which they are brought by the intolerance of all these old men.”
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