Author
Fiodor Dostoievski
1 reading card from 1 book · 1869.
1 card
Idiotul · 1869
Beauty proves nothing: what charms us also disarms us, and judgment remains our job.
Dostoevsky puts the claim in the mouth of a character considered naive, precisely so it will not sound like a slogan. The whole novel is the test of this thesis: beauty in the book is not only harmony but also seduction, vanity, the power to blind. The mechanism the author shows: what charms us also disarms us, because admiration lowers moral vigilance. An admired face can hide cruelty; an admired work can justify anything. That is why beauty is terrible: it demands a judgment that admiration alone cannot supply, and exactly there, between fascination and discernment, it is decided what beauty will do to us.
“Beauty will save the world. Beauty is a mysterious and terrible thing; here God and the devil struggle with one another, and the battlefield is the heart of man.”