The Idiot: Newly Translated and Annotated (Alma Classics Evergreens)

by Fyodor Dostoevsky

When you sow your seed, when you perform your beneficence, your act of charity, in whatever shape or form, you surrender some part of your personality and absorb a part of another; you commune with another being. There need be only some other, some further token of your consideration for you to be rewarded with knowledge, with the most unexpected revelation. You’ll inevitably begin to regard your good deeds as a science, which will take over your life and lend it purpose. Furthermore, all your ideas, all the seeds you have implanted, no doubt long forgotten by your good self, will germinate and grow. Whoever benefited from you, will pass the benefit on to others. And how can you tell what your part will be in the future resolution of men’s destinies? If, however, knowledge and a lifetime’s effort will eventually elevate you to that state where you’ll be capable of sowing some huge seed, bequeath the world some unique idea, then…