We know good people when we encounter them, when they fall upon our lives like a sunbeam, like a song. But we don’t always know what makes them good. It has, of course, a lot to do with kindness.
It has to do with their capacity to give, and also to receive. It has to do with their courage of uncertainty. And yet like all the great truths, the essence of a person, the goodness of a person, is both clear and ineffable.
In the bleak Siberian winter of 1856, Fyodor Dostoyevsky (November 11, 1821–February 9, 1881) — thirty-five, dreaming of being a writer while stationed at a labor camp, having narrowly escaped a death sentence that had given him a lucid glimpse of the meaning of life — sent his older brother a letter of introduction to a young friend whose goodness had touched his life, had changed it. Pulsating beneath the particular is a simple, precise articulation of what makes a good person in a universal sense. (In one of the most logically elegant and morally compelling arguments for humanity, Dostoyevsky believed there are no bad people — which is precisely what renders his concern with goodness all the more commanding.) “He is a very young, very gentle person,” he writes, “but with a strongly developed point of honor, incredibly kind.” In describing his friend’s modest education and intellectual disposition, he makes a subtle, profound point — it is far better to enjoy studying than to be overeducated. His young friend frequently helped him financially and not once asked for the money back, implicitly understanding that money is not a special species of resource, but — like time, like love — just another form of energy that circulates between us, flowing toward where it is most needed.
In a passage that calls to mind D.H. Lawrence’s timeless insight into the strength of the sensitive, Dostoyevsky arrives at the young man’s noblest quality. Observing that he is “prone to depression and rather over-anxious,” he reflects on the superpower of his friend’s vulnerability — one all the more needed in our Age of Outrage: What infuriates and enrages someone else saddens him — the sign of a superior heart.
Couple with Susan Sontag on what it means to be a good human being, then revisit the day Dostoyevsky discovered the meaning of life in a dream. — Published October 4, 2026 — https://www.themarginalian.org/2026/10/04/dostoyevsy-good-person/ — The Marginalian participates in the Bookshop.org and Amazon.com affiliate programs, designed to provide a means for sites to earn commissions by linking to books. In more human terms, this means that whenever you buy a book from a link here, I receive a small percentage of its price, which goes straight back into my own colossal biblioexpenses. Privacy policy. (TLDR: You're safe — there are no nefarious "third parties" lurking on my watch or shedding crumbs of the "cookies" the rest of the internet uses.)
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