dostoevsky hits the spot, only on my second read. at 23 years old. gosh. didn't understand a thing the first time when i was what...19? and college students in the US are 19 at the start. they are way smarter than i am. or maybe it's just the times. maybe now is the time to read it cos of the ideas floating in my nearby society. i guess most knowledge is experience. u can't just learn them. they will be empty.

quotes:

...he solemnly declared in argument that there was nothing in the whole world to make men love their neighbours. That there was no law of nature than man should love mankind, and that, if there had been any love on earth hihero, it was not owing to a naural law, but simply because men have believed in immortality. Ivan Fyodorovitch added in arenthesis that the whole natural law lies in that faith, and that if you to destroy in mankind the belief in immortality, not only love but every living force maintaining the life of the world would at once be dried up. Moreover, nothing then would be immoral, everything would be lawful, even cannilalism. Thats not all. He ended by asserting that for every individual, like ourselves, who does not believe in God or immortality, the moral law of nature must immediately be changed into the exact contrary of the former religious law, and that egoism, even to crime, must become, not only lawful but even recognised as the inevitable, the most rational, even honourable outcome of his position.

...the more I love humanity in general, te less I love man in particular. In my dreams, I have often come to making enthusiastic schemes for the service of humanity, and perhaps I might actually have faced crucifixion if it had been suddenly necessary; and yet I am incapable of living in the same room with any one for two days together, as I know by experince. As soon as any one is near me, his personality disturbs my self complacency and restricts my freedom...But it has always happened that the more I detest men individually the more ardent becomes my love fo humanity.