Every people has its own conception of good and evil, and its own good and evil. When the same conceptions of good and evil become prevalent in several nations, then these nations are dying, and then the very distinction between good and evil is beginning to disappear.
 Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Demons (1872). copy citation

add
Author Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Source Demons
Topic evil distinction
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

“When gods begin to be common to several nations the gods are dying and the faith in them, together with the nations themselves. The stronger a people the more individual their God. There never has been a nation without a religion, that is, without an idea of good and evil. Every people has its own conception of good and evil, and its own good and evil. When the same conceptions of good and evil become prevalent in several nations, then these nations are dying, and then the very distinction between good and evil is beginning to disappear. Reason has never had the power to define good and evil, or even to distinguish between good and evil, even approximately; on the contrary, it has always mixed them up in a disgraceful and pitiful way; science has even given the solution by the fist.” source