On Alyosha, from "The Brothers Karamazov"

“Before anything else I declare that this youth, Alyosha, was in no sense a fanatic, nor even in my opinion at any rate a mystic at all. I shall state in advance my complete opinion: he was simply an early lover of mankind, and if he had struck out along the monastery road it was only because it had at that time made a strong impression on him and presented itself to him, so to speak, as an ideal of deliverance for his soul, straining as it was out of the murk of worldly hatred unto the light of love.”