People with new ideas, people with the faintest capacity for saying something new, are extremely few in number, extraordinarily so in fact.
 Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Crime and Punishment (1867). copy citation

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Author Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Source Crime and Punishment
Topic rarity ideas creativity
Date 1867
Language English
Reference
Note Translated by Constance Garnett
Weblink http://www.gutenberg.org/files/2554/2554-h/2554-h.htm

Context

“I am ready to bow down to them, of course, but you must admit it's alarming if there are a great many of them, eh?»
«Oh, you needn't worry about that either,» Raskolnikov went on in the same tone. «People with new ideas, people with the faintest capacity for saying something new, are extremely few in number, extraordinarily so in fact. One thing only is clear, that the appearance of all these grades and sub-divisions of men must follow with unfailing regularity some law of nature. That law, of course, is unknown at present, but I am convinced that it exists, and one day may become known.” source

Meaning and analysis

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