“To go wrong in one’s own way is better than to go right in someone else’s.”
- Source
- Crime and Punishment
- Date
- 1866
- Local voice
- Fictional character · Razumihin
- English wording
- Constance Garnett — Translator · from Russian
Meaning of “To go wrong in one’s own way is…”
Razumihin values the capacity to make and correct one’s own mistakes over passive dependence on borrowed conclusions, making independent error part of an active search for truth.
Where does it come from?
Crime and Punishment, Part III, Chapter I, printed page 203 / Wikisource scan leaf 235, Constance Garnett translation in the scan-backed 1917 Harvard Classics Shelf of Fiction / P. F. Collier & Son edition, cross-checked against Project Gutenberg #2554. Razumihin argues that going wrong in one’s own way is better than going right in someone else’s while defending the role of making one’s own errors in reaching truth; it remains energetic fictional character dialogue rather than direct Dostoevsky autobiography.
Why the local voice matters
Razumihin says this during an argument about error, truth and borrowed ideas.
