It is not as a child that I believe and confess Jesus Christ. My hosanna is born of a furnace of doubt.

. Last Notebook (1880–1881), Literaturnoe nasledstvo, 83: 696; as quoted in Kenneth Lantz, The Dostoevsky Encyclopedia (2004), p. 21: "I believe in Christ and confess him not like some child; my hosanna has passed through an enormous furnace of doubt."