Dostoevsky - The Brothers Karamazov
“Oh, thank you, thank you! You see, I close my eyes and I reason like this: people do have faith, but where does it come from? I’ve heard it said that it all came originally from fear of menacing natural phenomena, and that there’s nothing else to it. So I say to myself: ‘What if, after I’ve been a believer all my life, when I die it suddenly turns out that after life there’s nothing at all, nothing but wild grass growing on my grave,’ as some writer put it. That’s horrible! And how can I regain my faith? I must say, I only really believed when I was a little girl. I took things for granted then, without questioning. What is there to prove it to me now? This is what I have come here for, to throw myself at your feet and ask you. Why, if I miss this opportunity, I will never find the answer in all my life. So how can I prove it to myself, how can I become convinced? Oh, I am so unhappy! When I look around me, I realize that people don’t care, hardly anyone does, and I’m the only one who cannot bear it. It is dreadful, just dreadful!”
“I am sure it is dreadful, but nothing can be proved, although one can become convinced.”
“How? By what?”
“By acts of love. Try to love your neighbors, love them actively and unceasingly. And as you learn to love them more and more, you will be more and more convinced of the existence of God and of the immortality of your soul. And if you achieve complete self-abnegation in your love for your fellow man, you will certainly gain faith, and there will be no room in your soul for any doubt whatsoever. This has been tested. This is the true way.”