‘He is a nihilist,’ repeated Arkady. ‘A nihilist,’ said Nikolai Petrovich. ‘That’s from the Latin nihil, nothing, so far as I can judge. Therefore, the word denotes a man who … who doesn’t recognize anything?’ ‘Say, rather, who doesn’t respect anything,’ added Pavel Petrovich and once more busied himself with the butter. ‘Who approaches everything from a critical point of view,’ remarked Arkady. ‘Isn’t that the same thing?’ ‘No, it’s not the same thing. A nihilist is a man who doesn’t acknowledge any authorities, who doesn’t accept a single principle on faith, no matter how much that principle
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