
Source: Towards Evening (1889), p. 34
Source: Towards Evening (1889), p. 34
“Ignorance is not innocence but sin.”
“The only sin in the world is pretending to know everything.”
“It is in the brain, and the brain only, that the great sins of the world take place”
Book II, ch. 3 (trans. Constance Garnett)
The Elder Zossima, speaking to a devout widow afraid of death
The Brothers Karamazov (1879–1880)
Context: If you are penitent, you love. And if you love you are of God. All things are atoned for, all things are saved by love. If I, a sinner even as you are, am tender with you and have pity on you, how much more will God have pity upon you. Love is such a priceless treasure that you can redeem the whole world by it, and cleanse not only your own sins but the sins of others.
“For my part I believe in the forgiveness of sin and the redemption of ignorance.”
Response to a heckler asking him to state his beliefs, as quoted in TIME magazine (1 November 1963)
“I count religion but a childish toy,
And hold there is no sin but ignorance.”
Machiavel, Prologue
The Jew of Malta (c. 1589)