A spiritual craving

"Russian atheists and Russian Jesuits are the outcome not only of vanity, not only of a bad, vain feeling, but also of spiritual agony, spiritual thirst, a craving for something higher, for a firm footing, for a fatherland in which they have ceased to believe, because they have never even known it! It's easier for a Russian to become an atheist than for anyone else in the world. And Russians do not merely become atheists, but they invariable believe in atheism, as though it were a new religion without noticing they are putting their faith in a negation. So great is our craving!" - Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Idiot