"For everyone strives to keep his individuality as apart as possible, wishes to secure the greatest possible fullness of life for himself; but meantime all his efforts result not in attaining fullness of life but self-destruction, for instead of self-realisation he ends by arriving at complete solitude. All mankind in our age have split up into units, they all keep apart, each in his own groove; each one holds aloof, hides himself and hides what he has, from the rest, and he ends by being repelled by others and repelling them. He heaps up riches by himself and thinks, ‘How strong I am now and how secure,’ and in his madness he does not understand that the more he heaps up, the more he sinks into self-destructive impotence. For he is accustomed to rely upon himself alone and to cut himself off from the whole; he has trained himself not to believe in the help of others, in men and in humanity, and only trembles for fear he should lose his money and the privileges that he has won for himself. Everywhere in these days men have, in their mockery, ceased to understand that the true security is to be found in social solidarity rather than in isolated individual effort. But 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."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Imported from EN Wikiquote
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Fyodor_Dostoyevsky
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky or Dostoevsky [Фёдор Миха́йлович Достое́вский] (11 November 1821 - 9 February 1881) was a Russian novelist, short story writer, essayist, and journalist. Dostoevsky's literary works explore the human condition in the troubled political, social, and spiritual atmospheres of 19th-century Russia, and engage with a variety of philosophical and religious themes. Many literary critics rate him as one of the greatest novelists in all of world literature, as multiple of h
142 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Fyodor Dostoyevsky →
Related Quotes
"To study the meaning of man and of life — I am making significant progress here. I have faith in myself. Man is a mys…"
"I want to say to you, about myself, that I am a child of this age, a child of unfaith and scepticism, and probably (i…"
"Money is coined liberty, and so it is ten times dearer to the man who is deprived of freedom. If money is jingling in…"
"Neither a person nor a nation can exist without some higher idea. And there is only one higher idea on earth, and it …"
"I think that the principal and most basic spiritual need of the Russian People is the need for suffering, incessant a…"
"It is not as a child that I believe and confess Jesus Christ. My hosanna is born of a furnace of doubt."
"A great many people were put down as mad among us last year. And in such language! "With such original talent" ... "a…"
"The second half of a man's life is made up of nothing but the habits he has acquired during the first half."
"Russia was a slave in Europe but would be a master in Asia."
"Do a man dirt, yourself you hurt."