Dostoyevsky: Prince Myshkin's Quietism

An excerpt from Dostoyevsky's The Idiot

Photograph: Garrod Kirkwood

From a statement expressed to Prince Myshkin in Fyodor Dostoyevsky's novel, The Idiot (translated by David McDuff):

With quietism like yours one could fill a hundred years with happiness. Whether one showed you an execution or a little finger, you would extract an equally edifying thought from both of them, and would still be content. That's the way to get on in life.

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Also at A Piece of Monologue:

• Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Poor Folk
• Life of a Dostoyevsky Translator
• Byatt on Dostoyevsky and Execution
• Dostoyevsky's Demons: Political Activists
• Youthful reading: Nietzsche and Dostoyevsky