How we cite our quotes: (Part.Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #10
"[I]f one of us [Russians] goes over to Roman Catholicism, he is sure to become a Jesuit at once, and a rabid one into the bargain. If one of us becomes an Atheist, he must needs begin to insist on the prohibition of faith in God by force, that is, by the sword. Why is this? Why does he then exceed all bounds at once? […] from spiritual thirst, from anguish of longing for higher things, for dry firm land, for foothold on a fatherland which they never believed in because they never knew it. It is easier for a Russian to become an Atheist, than for any other nationality in the world. And not only does a Russian 'become an Atheist,' but he actually BELIEVES IN Atheism, just as though he had found a new faith […]. But let these thirsty Russian souls find, like Columbus' discoverers, a new world; let them find the Russian world, let them search and discover all the gold and treasure that lies hid in the bosom of their own land! Show them the restitution of lost humanity, in the future, by Russian thought alone, and by means of the God and of the Christ of our Russian faith, and you will see how mighty and just and wise and good a giant will rise up before the eyes of the astonished and frightened world." (4.7.54-56)
This is where Dostoevsky really gets to lay out his program. His idea is that Russian Orthodoxy is the way to save the West from itself and the scourge of liberal thinking. Which, yeah, isn't really the way history went. But embedded in this rant is the idea that Russia owes the West an apology for the "way of the sword" with which foreign policy had been handled—and that forgiveness will be worked out by converting everyone to a new religion. Um, dude, that actually is the way of the sword: meet the new boss, same as the old boss.