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At That Point I Ought To Have Gone Away, But A Strange Sensation Rose Up In Me, A Sort Of Defiance Of Fate, A Desire To Challenge It, To Put Out My Tongue At It. I Laid Down The Largest Stake Allowe-four Thousand Gulden-and Lost It. Then, Getting Hot, I Pulled Out All I Had Left, Staked It On The Same Number, And Lost Again, After Which I Walked Away From The Table As Though I Were Stunned. I Could Not Even Grasp What Had Happened To Me.

-Fyodor Dostoevsky

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At That Point I

Fyodor Dostoevsky

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At That Point I Ought To Have Gone Away, But A Strange Sensation Rose Up In Me, A Sort Of Defiance Of Fate, A Desire To Challenge It, To Put Out My Tongue At It. I Laid Down The Largest Stake Allowe-four Thousand Gulden-and Lost It. Then, Getting Hot, I Pulled Out All I Had Left, Staked It On The Same Number, And Lost Again, After Which I Walked Away From The Table As Though I Were Stunned. I Could Not Even Grasp What Had Happened To Me.

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Twice Two Makes Four Seems To Me Simply A Piece Of Insolence. Twice Two Makes Four Is A Pert Coxcomb Who Stands With Arms Akimbo Barring Your Path And Spitting. I Admit That Twice Two Makes Four Is An Excellent Thing, But If We Are To Give Everything Its Due, Twice Two Makes Five Is Sometimes A Very Charming Thing Too.

Even Those Who Have Renounced Christianity And Attack It, In Their Inmost Being Still Follow The Christian Ideal, For Hitherto Neither Their Subtlety Nor The Ardour Of Their Hearts Has Been Able To Create A Higher Ideal Of Man And Of Virtue Than The Ideal Given By Christ Of Old.

Love The Animals: God Has Given Them The Rudiments Of Thought And Joy Untroubled.

Man Has Not The Right To Turn Aside And Heed Not What Is Happening In The World Around Him, And This I Maintain On Moral Grounds Of The Highest Order.

They May All Be Drunk At My Place, But They're All Honest, And Though We Do Lie-because I Lie, Too-in The End We'll Lie Our Way To The Truth

Deprived Of Meaningful Work, Men And Women Lose Their Reason For Existence; They Go Stark, Raving Mad.

And If There's Love, You Can Do Without Happiness Too. Even With Sorrow, Life Is Sweet.

What Is Most Vile And Despicable About Money Is That It Even Confers Talent. And It Will Do So Until The End Of The World.

Beyond The Grave They Will Find Nothing But Death. But We Shall Keep The Secret, And For Their Happiness We Shall Allure Them With The Reward Of Heaven And Eternity.

If You Want To Overcome The Whole World, Overcome Yourself.

The Best Way To Keep A Prisoner From Escaping Is To Make Sure He Never Knows He's In Prison.

They Have Succeeded In Accumulating A Greater Mass Of Objects, But The Joy In The World Has Grown Less.

Learning To Love Is Hard And We Pay Dearly For It. It Takes Hard Work And A Long Apprenticeship, For It Is Not Just For A Moment That We Must Learn To Love, But Forever.

Of Course Boredom May Lead You To Anything. It Is Boredom Sets One Sticking Golden Pins Into People, But All That Would Not Matter. What Is Bad (this Is My Comment Again) Is That I Dare Say People Will Be Thankful For The Gold Pins Then.

...to Return To Their 'native Soil,' As They Say, To The Bosom, So To Speak, Of Their Mother Earth, Like Frightened Children, Yearning To Fall Asleep On The Withered Bosom Of Their Decrepit Mother, And To Sleep There For Ever, Only To Escape The Horrors That Terrify Them.

If There Is No God, Everything Is Permitted.

There Is No God

Existentialism Isn't So Atheistic That It Wears Itself Out Showing That God Doesn't Exist. Rather, It Declares That Even If God Did Exist, That Would Change Nothing.

I Am Told That The Proximity Of Punishment Arouses Real Repentance In The Criminal And Sometimes Awakens A Feeling Of Genuine Remorse In The Most Hardened Heart; I Am Told This Is Due To Fear.

By Interpreting Freedom As The Propagation And Immediate Gratification Of Needs, People Distort Their Own Nature, For They Engender In Themselves A Multitude Of Pointless And Foolish Desires, Habits, And Incongruous Stratagems. Their Lives Are Motivated Only By Mutual Envy, Sensuality, And Ostentation.

After All, Bluff And Real Emotion Exist So Easily Side By Side.

In Summer, Intolerable Closeness; In Winter, Unendurable Cold. All The Floors Were Rotten. Filth On The Floors An Inch Thick; One Could Slip And Fall.

Is There In The Whole World A Being Who Would Have The Right To Forgive And Could Forgive?

Brothers Karamazov

So Long As Man Remains Free He Strives For Nothing So Incessantly And So Painfully As To Find Someone To Worship.

'ever Seen A Leaf - A Leaf From A Tree?' 'yes.' I Saw One Recently - A Yellow One, A Little Green, Wilted At The Edges. Blown By The Wind. When I Was A Little Boy, I Used To Shut My Eyes In Winter And Imagine A Green Leaf, With Veins On It, And The Sun Shining ...' 'what's This - An Allegory?' "no; Why? Not An Allegory - A Leaf, Just A Leaf. A Leaf Is Good. Everything's Good.'

In A Morbid Condition Of The Brain, Dreams Often Have A Singular Actuality, Vividness, And Extraordinary Semblance Of Reality. At Times Monstrous Images Are Created, But The Setting And The Whole Picture Are So Truth-like And Filled With Details So Delicate, So Unexpectedly, But So Artistically Consistent, That The Dreamer, Were He An Artist Like Pushkin Or Turgenev Even, Could Never Have Invented Them In The Waking State. Such Sick Dreams Always Remain Long In The Memory And Make A Powerful Impression On The Overwrought And Deranged Nervous System.

It's A Burden To Us Even To Be Human Beings-men With Our Own Real Body And Blood; We Are Ashamed Of It, We Think It A Disgrace And Try To Contrive To Be Some Sort Of Impossible Generalized Man.

To Care Only For Well-being Seems To Me Positively Ill-bred. Whether It’s Good Or Bad, It Is Sometimes Very Pleasant, Too, To Smash Things.

Notes From The Underground

By The Experience Of Active Love. Strive To Love Your Neighbour Actively And Indefatigably. In As Far As You Advance In Love You Will Grow Surer Of The Reality Of God And Of The Immortality Of Your Soul. If You Attain To Perfect Self-forgetfulness In The Love Of Your Neighbour, Then You Will Believe Without Doubt, And No Doubt Can Possibly Enter Your Soul. This Has Been Tried. This Is Certain.

If You Love All Things, You Will Also Attain The Divine Mystery That Is In All Things. For Then Your Ability To Perceive The Truth Will Grow Every Day, And Your Mind Will Open Itself To An All-embracing Love

It Takes Something More Than Intelligence To Act Intelligently.

Crime And Punishment

But How Could You Live And Have No Story To Tell?

It's In The Homes Of Spiteful Old Widows That One Finds Such Cleanliness.

He Who Masters The Grey Everyday Is A Hero.

It Is Precisely That Requirement Of Shared Worship That Has Been The Principal Source Of Suffering For Individual Man And The Human Race Since The Beginning Of History. In Their Efforts To Impose Universal Worship, Men Have Unsheathed Their Swords And Killed One Another. They Have Invented Gods And Challenged Each Other: "discard Your Gods And Worship Mine Or I Will Destroy Both Your Gods And You!"

Because Everyone Is Guilty For Everyone Else. For All The 'wee Ones,' Because There Are Little Children And Big Children. All People Are 'wee Ones.' And I'll Go For All Of Them, Because There Must Be Someone Who Will Go For All Of Them.

I Cannot Truly Imagine A Truly Great Person Who Hasn't Suffered.

The Russian Soul Is A Dark Place.

Can A Man Possessing Conciousness Ever Really Respect Himself?

"i Love Mankind," He Said, "but I Find To My Amazement That The More I Love Mankind As A Whole, The Less I Love Man In Particular."

One Must Love Life Before Loving Its Meaning ... Yes, And When The Love Of Life Disappears, No Meaning Can Console Us.

When He Has Lost All Hope, All Object In Life, Man Becomes A Monster In His Misery.

Power Is Only Vouchsafed To The Man Who Dares To Stoop And Pick It Up. There Is Only One Thing, One Thing Needful: One Has Only To Dare!

Love To Throw Yourself On The Earth And Kiss It. Kiss The Earth And Love It With An Unceasing, Consuming Love.

To Crush, To Annihilate A Man Utterly, To Inflict On Him The Most Terrible Of Punishments So That The Most Ferocious Murderer Would Shudder At It And Dread It Beforehand, One Need Only Give Him Work Of An Absolutely, Completely Useless And Irrational Character.

I Have No Self-respect. But Can A Man Of Acute Sensibility Respect Himself At All?

In Sinning, Each Man Sins Against All, And Each Man Is At Least Partly Guilt For Another's Sin. There Is No Isolated Sin.

The Degree Of Civilization In A Society Can Be Judged By Entering Its Prisons.

He Who Desires To See The Living God Face-to-face Should Not Seek Him In The Empty, Firmament Of His Mind, But In Human Love.

Love Every Leaf, Every Ray Of Light. Love The Animals, Love The Plants, Love Each Separate Thing. Loving All, You Will Perceive The Mystery Of God In All.

Often A Man Endures For Several Years, Submits And Suffers The Cruellest Punishments, And Then Suddenly Breaks Out Over Some Minute Trifle, Almost Nothing At All.

Just Take A Look Around You: Blood Is Flowing In Rivers And In Such A Jolly Way You’d Think It Was Champagne.

For What Is Man Without Desires, Without Free Will, And Without The Power Of Choice But A Stop In An Organ Pipe?

Trifles, Trifles Are What Matter!

My Sweetheart! When I Think Of You, It's As If I'm Holding Some Healing Balm To My Sick Soul, And Although I Suffer For You, I Find That Even Suffering For You Is Easy.

I Don't Need Money, Or, Better, It's Not Money That I Need; It's Not Even Power; I Need Only What Is Obtained By Power And Simply Cannot Be Obtained Without Power: The Solitary And Calm Awareness Of Strength! That Is The Fullest Definition Of Freedom, Which The World So Struggles Over!

Ah, Father! That’s Words And Only Words! Forgive! If He’d Not Been Run Over, He’d Have Come Home Today Drunk And His Only Shirt Dirty And In Rags And He’d Have Fallen Asleep Like A Log, And I Should Have Been Sousing And Rinsing Till Daybreak, Washing His Rags And The Children’s And Then Drying Them By The Window And As Soon As It Was Daylight I Should Have Been Darning Them. What’s The Use Of Talking Forgiveness! I Have Forgiven As It Is!

For If There's No Everlasting God, There's No Such Thing As Virtue, And There's No Need Of It.

There Is Only One Way To Salvation, And That Is To Make Yourself Responsible For All Men's Sins. As Soon As You Make Yourself Responsible In All Sincerity For Everything And For Everyone, You Will See At Once That This Is Really So, And That You Are In Fact To Blame For Everyone And For All Things.

The Meanest And Most Hateful Thing About Money Is That It Even Gives One Talent.

Don't Think I'm Talking Nonsense Because I'm Drunk. I'm Not A Bit Drunk. Brandy's All Very Well, But I Need Two Bottles To Make Me Drunk.

The Pleasure Of Despair. But Then, It Is In Despair That We Find The Most Acute Pleasure, Especially When We Are Aware Of The Hopelessness Of The Situation... ...everything Is A Mess In Which It Is Impossible To Tell What's What, But That Despite This Impossibility And Deception It Still Hurts You, And The Less You Can Understand, The More It Hurts.

I Am Strongly Convinced That Not Only Too Much Consciousness But Even Any Consciousness At All Is A Sickness.

It Sometimes Happened That You Might Be Familiar With A Man For Several Years Thinking He Was A Wild Animal, And You Would Regard Him With Contempt. And Then Suddenly A Moment Would Arrive When Some Uncontrollable Impulse Would Lay His Soul Bare, And You Would Behold In It Such Riches, Such Sensitivity And Warmth, Such A Vivid Awareness Of Its Own Suffering And The Suffering Of Others, That The Scales Would Fall From Your Eyes And At First You Would Hardly Be Able To Believe What You Had Seen And Heard. The Reverse Also Happens.

We're Always Thinking Of Eternity As An Idea That Cannot Be Understood, Something Immense. But Why Must It Be? What If, Instead Of All This, You Suddenly Find Just A Little Room There, Something Like A Village Bath-house, Grimy, And Spiders In Every Corner, And That's All Eternity Is. Sometimes, You Know, I Can't Help Feeling That That's What It Is.

Being In Love Doesn't Mean Loving.

Since I Wasn't Consulted At The Time Of The Creation Of The World, I Reserve For Myself The Right To Have My Own Opinion About It.

Know, Then, That Now, Precisely Now, These People Are More Certain Than Ever Before That They Are Completely Free, And At The Same Time They Themselves Have Brought Us Their Freedom And Obediently Laid It At Our Feet. It Is Our Doing, But Is It What You Wanted? This Sort Of Freedom?' Again I Don't Understand', Alyosha Interrupted, 'is He Being Ironic? Is He Laughing?' Not In The Least. He Precisely Lays It To His And His Colleagues' Credit That They Have Finally Overcome Freedom, And Have Done So In Order To Make People Happy.

A Just Cause Is Not Ruined By A Few Mistakes.

That's Just The Point: An Honest And Sensitive Man Opens His Heart, And The Man Of Business Goes On Eating - And Then He Eats You Up.

I Drink Because I Wish To Multiply My Sufferings.

What Is Hell? I Maintain That It Is The Suffering Of Being Unable To Love.

From A Hundred Rabbits You Can't Make A Horse.

Hang Your Merit. I Don't Seek Anyone's Approbation.

How Many Ideas Have There Been In The History Of Man Which Were Unthinkable Ten Years Before They Appeared?

Love Life More Than The Meaning Of It?

Brothers Karamazov

I Want To Suffer And Be Purified By Suffering!

Occasionally I Was So Much Better That I Could Go Out; But The Streets Used To Put Me In Such A Rage That I Would Lock Myself Up For Days Rather Than Go Out, Even If I Were Well Enough To Do So! I Could Not Bear To See All Those Preoccupied, Anxious-looking Creatures Continuously Surging Along The Streets Past Me! Why Are They Always Anxious? What Is The Meaning Of Their Eternal Care And Worry? It Is Their Wickedness, Their Perpetual Detestable Malice-that's What It Is-they Are All Full Of Malice, Malice!

What Do You Think, Would Not One Tiny Crime Be Wiped Out By Thousands Of Good Deeds?

I Have Been Tortured With Longing To Believe ... And The Yearning Grows Stronger The More Cogent The Intellectual Difficulties Stand In The Way.

But Yet I Am Firmly Persuaded That A Great Deal Of Consciousness, Every Sort Of Consciousness, In Fact, Is A Disease.

I Am A Fool With A Heart But No Brains, And You Are A Fool With Brains But No Heart; And We’re Both Unhappy, And We Both Suffer.

People Really Do Like Seeing Their Best Friends Humiliated; A Large Part Of The Friendship Is Based On Humiliation; And That Is An Old Truth,well Known To All Intelligent People.

Happiness Does Not Lie In Happiness, But In The Achievement Of It.

If You Wish To Glimpse Inside A Human Soul And Get To Know A Man, Don't Bother Analyzing His Ways Of Being Silent, Of Talking, Of Weeping, Of Seeing How Much He Is Moved By Noble Ideas; You Will Get Better Results If You Just Watch Him Laugh. If He Laughs Well, He's A Good Man.

What Tender And Devoted Mother Wouldn't Be Dismayed And Ill With Terror At Her Son's Or Daughter's Stepping Even One Hair's Breath Off The Beaten Track. No, Better Let Him Be Happy And Live In Comfort Without Originality, Is What Every Mother Thinks When She Rocks The Cradle. The Only Person Among Us Who Can Fail To Reach The General's Rank Is The Original Man - In Other Words, The Man Who Won't Be Quiet.

They Were Like Two Enemies In Love With One Another.

I Agree That Two And Two Make Four Is An Excellent Thing; But To Give Everything Its Due, Two And Two Make Five Is Also A Very Fine Thing.

Sarcasm: The Last Refuge Of Modest And Chaste-souled People When The Privacy Of Their Soul Is Coarsely And Intrusively Invaded.

... The More I Learned, The More Conscious Did I Become Of The Fact That I Was Ridiculous. So That For Me My Years Of Hard Work At The University Seem In The End To Have Existed For The Sole Purpose Of Demonstrating And Proving To Me, The More Deeply Engrossed I Became In My Studies, That I Was An Utterly Absurd Person

It Seems, In Fact, As Though The Second Half Of A Man's Life Is Made Up Of Nothing, But The Habits He Has Accumulated During The First Half.

I Don’t Understand Anything...and I No Longer Want To Understand Anything. I Want To Stick To The Fact...if I Wanted To Understand Something, I Would Immediately Have To Betray The Fact, But I’ve Made Up My Mind To Stick To The Fact.

When Reason Fails, The Devil Helps!

With Old Liars Who Have Been Acting All Their Lives There Are Moments When They Enter So Completely Into Their Part That They Tremble Or Shed Tears In Earnest, Although At That Very Moment, Or A Second Later, They Are Able To Whisper To Themselves, "you Know You Are Lying, You Shameless Old Sinner! You're Acting Now, In Spite Of Your 'holy' Wrath.

If You Can Put The Question, 'am I Or Am I Not Responsible For My Acts?' Then You Are Responsible.

Psychology Lures Even Most Serious People Into Romancing, And Quite Unconsciously.

What Would Life Be If We Had No Courage To Attempt Anything? Taking A New Step, Uttering A New Word, Is What People Fear Most.

Catch Several Hares And You Won't Catch One.

But What Can A Decent Man Speak Of With Most Pleasure? Answer: Of Himself. Well, So I Will Talk About Myself.

Filled With Rapture, His Soul Yearned For Freedom, Space, Vastness. Over Him The Heavenly Dome, Full Of Quiet, Shining Stars, Hung Boundlessly. From The Zenith To The Horizon The Still-dim Milky Way Stretched Its Double Strand. Night, Fresh And Quiet, Almost Unstirring, Enveloped The Earth. The White Towers And Golden Domes Of The Church Gleamed In The Sapphire Sky. The Luxuriant Autumn Asleep Till Morning. The Silence Of The Earth Seemed To Merge With The Silence Of The Heavens And The Mystery Of The Earth Touched The Mystery Of The Stars.

But I Always Liked Side-paths, Little Dark Back-alleys Behind The Main Road- There One Finds Adventures And Surprises, And Precious Metal In The Dirt.

At Some Thoughts One Stands Perplexed, Especially At The Sight Of Men's Sin, And Wonders Whether One Should Use Force Or Humble Love. Always Decide To Use Humble Love. If You Resolve On That Once For All, You May Subdue The Whole World.

A Real Gentleman, Even If He Loses Everything He Owns, Must Show No Emotion. Money Must Be So Far Beneath A Gentleman That It Is Hardly Worth Troubling About.

Above All, Don't Lie To Yourself. The Man Who Lies To Himself And Listens To His Own Lie Comes To A Point That He Cannot Distinguish The Truth Within Him, Or Around Him, And So Loses All Respect For Himself And For Others. And Having No Respect He Ceases To Love.

Civilization Has Made Man, If Not Always More Bloodthirsty, At Least More Viciously, More Horribly Bloodthirsty.

We All Come Out From Gogol's 'overcoat'.

Russian Literature

You Sensed That You Should Be Following A Different Path, A More Ambitious One, You Felt That You Were Destined For Other Things But You Had No Idea How To Achieve Them And In Your Misery You Began To Hate Everything Around You.

Faith Does Not, In The Realist, Spring From The Miracle But The Miracle From The Faith.

Schoolboys Are A Merciless Race, Individually They Are Angels, But Together, Especially In Schools, They Are Often Merciless.

The Soul Is Healed By Being With Children.

Civilization Merely Develops Man's Capacity For A Greater Variety Of Sensations, And ... Absolutely Nothing Else.

Compassion Is The Chief Law Of Human Existence.

Come, Try, Give Any One Of Us, For Instance, A Little More Independence, Untie Our Hands, Widen The Spheres Of Our Activity, Relax The Control And We...yes, I Assure You...we Should Be Begging To Be Under Control Again At Once.

In Most Cases, People, Even Wicked People, Are Far More Naive And Simple-hearted Than One Generally Assumes. And So Are We.

Paradise Is Hidden In Each One Of Use, It Is Concealed Within Me Too, Right Now, And If I Wish, It Will Come For Me In Reality, Tomorrow Even, And For The Rest Of My Life.

The Sky Was Horribly Dark , But One Could Distinctly See Tattered Clouds , And Between Them Fathomless Black Patches. Suddenly I Noticed In One Of These Patches A Star , And Began Watching It Intently. That Was Because That Star Had Given Me An Idea : I Decided To Kill Myself That Night .

Without A Clear Perception Of His Reasons For Living, Man Will Never Consent To Live, And Will Rather Destroy Himself Than Tarry On Earth, Though He Be Surrounded With Bread".

To Love Another Person Is To See Them As God Intended Them To Be.

You Are Told A Lot About Your Education, But Some Beautiful, Sacred Memory, Preserved Since Childhood, Is Perhaps The Best Education Of All. If A Man Carries Many Such Memories Into Life With Him, He Is Saved For The Rest Of His Days. And Even If Only One Good Memory Is Left In Our Hearts, It May Also Be The Instrument Of Our Salvation One Day.

Equality Lies Only In Human Moral Dignity. ... Let There Be Brothers First, Then There Will Be Brotherhood, And Only Then Will There Be A Fair Sharing Of Goods Among Brothers.

Here Is A Commandment For You: Seek Happiness In Sorrow. Work, Work Tirelessly.

They Have This Social Justification For Every Nasty Thing They Do!

And Yet I Am Convinced That Man Will Never Give Up True Suffering- That Is, Destruction And Chaos. Why, Suffering Is The Sole Root Of Consciousness.

For Example, I'm Terribly Proud. I'm As Mistrustful And As Sensitive As A Hunchback Or A Dwarf; But, In Truth, I've Experienced Some Moments When If Someone Had Slapped My Face, I Might Even Have Been Grateful For It. I'm Being Serious. I Probably Would Have Been Able To Derive A Peculiar Sort Of Pleasure From It-the Pleasure Of Despair, Naturally, But The Most Intense Pleasures Occur In Despair, Especially When You're Very Acutely Aware Of The Hopelessness Of Your Own Predicament.

On An Exceptionally Hot Evening Early In July A Young Man Came Out Of The Garret In Which He Lodged In S. Place And Walked Slowly, As Though In Hesitation, Towards K. Bridge.

When I Look Back At The Past And Think Of All The Time I Squandered In Error And Idleness,... Then My Heart Bleeds. Life Is A Gift... Every Minute Could Have Been An Eternity Of Happiness! If Only Youth Knew! Now My Life Will Change; Now I Will Be Reborn.

Love Children Especially, For They Too Are Sinless Like The Angels; They Live To Soften And Purify Our Hearts And, As It Were, To Guide Us.

If He Has A Conscience He Will Suffer For His Mistake. That Will Be His Punishment-as Well As The Prison.

What If, When This Fog Scatters And Flies Upward, The Whole Rotten, Slimey City Goes With It, Rises With The Fog And Vanishes Like Smoke.

Man Has It All In His Hands, And It All Slips Through His Fingers From Sheer Cowardice.

Perhaps A Normal Man Is Supposed To Be Stupid-how Do We Know? Perhaps It's Even Very Beautiful.

But It's Precisely In This Cold, Loathsome Half-despair, Half-belief, In This Deliberate Burying Of Yourself Underground For Forty Years Out Of Sheer Pain, In This Assiduously Constructed, And Yet Somewhat Dubious Hopelessness, In All This Poision Of Unfulfilled Desires Turned Inward, This Fever Of Vacillations, Of Resolutions Adopted For Eternity, And Of Repentances A Moment Later That You Find The Very Essence Of That Strange, Sharp Pleasure.

What Terrible Tragedies Realism Inflicts On People.

I Want Peace; Yes, I'd Sell The Whole World For A Farthing, Straight Off, So Long As I Was Left In Peace. Is The World To Go To Pot, Or Am I To Go Without My Tea? I Say That The World May Go To Pot For Me So Long As I Always Get My Tea. Did You Know That, Or Not? Well, Anyway, I Know That I Am A Blackguard, A Scoundrel, An Egoist, A Sluggard.

He Was One Of The Numerous And Varied Legion Of Dullards, Of Half-animated Abortions, Conceited, Half-educated Coxcombs, Who Attach Themselves To The Idea Most In Fashion Only To Vulgarize It And Who Caricature Every Cause They Serve, However Sincerely.

[to Jesus] You Did Not Come Down From The Cross When They Shouted To You, Mocking And Reviling You: "come Down From The Cross And We Will Believe That It Is You." You Did Not Come Down Because, Again, You Did Not Want To Enslave Man By A Miracle And Thirsted For Faith That Is Free, Not Miraculous...i Swear, Man Is Created Weaker And Baser Than You Thought Him! How, How Can He Ever Accomplish The Same Things As You? ...respecting Him Less, You Would Have Demanded Less Of Him, And That Would Be Closer To Love, For His Burden Would Be Lighter.

..., Twice Two Is Four Is Not Life, Gentlemen, But The Beginning Of Death.

I Am Alone, I Thought, And They Are Everybody.

God Knows What Lives In Me In Place Of Me.

I Have In My Own Life Merely Carried To The Extreme That Which You Have Never Ventured To Carry Even Halfway ; And What's More, You've Regarded Your Cowardice As Prudence, And Found Comfort In Deceiving Yourselves. So That, In Fact, I May Be Even More "alive" Than You Are. Do Take A Closer Look!

Without God All Things Are Permitted.

Oh, If Only I Did Nothing Simply As A Result Of Laziness.

You Don't Need Free Will To Determine That Twice Two Is Four. That's Not What I Call Free Will

Life Is Paradise, And We Are All In Paradise, But We Refuse To See It.

To Study The Meaning Of Man And Of Life — I Am Making Significant Progress Here. I Have Faith In Myself. Man Is A Mystery: If You Spend Your Entire Life Trying To Puzzle It Out, Then Do Not Say That You Have Wasted Your Time. I Occupy Myself With This Mystery, Because I Want To Be A Man.

The World Stands On Absurdities, And Without Them Perhaps Nothing At All Would Happen.

Man Is Bound To Lie About Himself

Yet, I Didn't Understand That She Was Intentionally Disguising Her Feelings With Sarcasm; That Was Usually The Last Resort Of People Who Are Timid And Chaste Of Heart, Whose Souls Have Been Coarsely And Impudently Invaded; And Who, Until The Last Moment, Refuse To Yield Out Of Pride And Are Afraid To Express Their Own Feelings To You.

The Man Who Lies To Himself And Listens To His Own Lie Comes To Such A Pass That He Cannot Distinguish The Truth Within Him.

Put Away Your Gods And Come And Worship Ours, Or We Will Kill You And Your Gods!

Anyone Who Can Appease A Man's Conscience Can Take His Freedom Away From Him.

A Man Who Lies To Himself, And Believes His Own Lies, Becomes Unable To Recognize Truth, Either In Himself Or In Anyone Else, And He Ends Up Losing Respect For Himself And For Others.

Even As I Approach The Gambling Hall, As Soon As I Hear, Two Rooms Away, The Jingle Of Money Poured Out On The Table, I Almost Go Into Convulsions.

And In Fact You're Not Like Everyone Else: You Weren't Ashamed Just Now To Confess Bad And Even Ridiculous Things About Yourself. Who Would Confess Such Things Nowadays? No One, And People Have Even Stopped Feeling Any Need For Self-judgment.

Love All God’s Creation, Both The Whole And Every Grain Of Sand. Love Every Leaf, Every Ray Of Light. Love The Animals, Love The Plants, Love Each Separate Thing. If Thou Love Each Thing Thou Wilt Perceive The Mystery Of God In All; And When Once Thou Perceive This, Thou Wilt Thenceforward Grow Every Day To A Fuller Understanding Of It: Until Thou Come At Last To Love The Whole World With A Love That Will Then Be All-embracing And Universal.

Yes, That's Right... Love Should Come Before Logic ... Only Then Will Man Come To Understand The Meaning Of Life.

Meaning Of Life

What Makes A Hero? Courage, Strength, Morality, Withstanding Adversity? Are These The Traits That Truly Show And Create A Hero? Is The Light Truly The Source Of Darkness Or Vice Versa? Is The Soul A Source Of Hope Or Despair? Who Are These So Called Heroes And Where Do They Come From? Are Their Origins In Obscurity Or In Plain Sight?

To Begin With Unlimited Freedom Is To End With Unlimited Despotism.

Now I'm Living Out My Life In A Corner, Trying To Console Myself With The Stupid, Useless Excuse That An Intelligent Man Cannot Turn Himself Into Anything, That Only A Fool Can Make Anything He Wants Out Of Himself.

I Am A Dreamer. I Know So Little Of Real Life That I Just Can’t Help Re-living Such Moments As These In My Dreams, For Such Moments Are Something I Have Very Rarely Experienced. I Am Going To Dream About You The Whole Night, The Whole Week, The Whole Year.

Inventors And Geniuses Have Almost Always Been Looked On As No Better Than Fools At The Beginning Of Their Career, And Very Frequently At The End Of It Also.

The More Stupid One Is, The Closer One Is To Reality. The More Stupid One Is, The Clearer One Is. Stupidity Is Brief And Artless, While Intelligence Squirms And Hides Itself. Intelligence Is Unprincipled, But Stupidity Is Honest And Straightforward.

In The End They Will Lay Their Freedom At Our Feet And Say To Us, Make Us Your Slaves, But Feed Us.

And The More I Drink The More I Feel It. That's Why I Drink Too. I Try To Find Sympathy And Feeling In Drink.... I Drink So That I May Suffer Twice As Much!

We Don't Understand That Life Is Heaven, For We Have Only To Understand That And It Will At Once Be Fulfilled In All Its Beauty, We Shall Embrace Each Other And Weep.

I Tell Thee That Man Is Tormented By No Greater Anxiety Than To Find Someone Quickly To Whom He Can Hand Over That Gift Of Freedom With Which The Ill-fated Creatures Is Born. But Only One Who Can Appease Their Conscience Can Take Over Their Freedom […] Instead Of Taking Men's Freedom From Them, Thou Didst Make It Greater Than Ever! Didst Thou Forget That Man Prefers Peace, And Even Death, To Freedom Of Choice In The Knowledge Of Good And Evil?

Nothing Has Ever Been More Insupportable For A Man And A Human Society Than Freedom. –the Grand Inquisitor

From Harmony, From Heavenly Harmony, This Universal Frame Began: From Harmony To Harmony Through All The Compass Of The Notes It Ran, The Diapason Closing Full In Man.

Intelligence Alone Is Not Nearly Enough When It Comes To Acting Wisely.

Oh, Gentlemen, Perhaps I Really Regard Myself As An Intelligent Man Only Because Throughout My Entire Life I've Never Been Able To Start Or Finish Anything. Granted, Granted I'm A Babbler, A Harmless, Irksome Babbler, As We All Are. But What's To Be Done If The Sole And Express Purpose Of Every Intelligent Man Is Babble--that Is, A Deliberate Pouring From Empty Into Void.

Everything Passes, Only Truth Remains.

For All Is Like An Ocean, All Flows And Connects; Touch It In One Place And It Echoes At The Other End Of The World.

An Artist Must Know The Reality He Is Depicting In Its Minutest Detail. In My Opinion We Have Only One Shining Example Of That - Count Leo Tolstoy.

Be The Sun And All Will See You.

Lamentations Comfort Only By Lacerating The Heart Still More. Such Grief Does Not Desire Consolation. It Feeds On The Sense Of Its Hopelessness. Lamentations Spring Only From The Constant Craving To Re-open The Wound.

The World Will Be Saved By Beauty.

Be Not Forgetful Of Prayer. Every Time You Pray, If Your Prayer Is Sincere, There Will Be New Feeling And New Meaning In It, Which Will Give You Fresh Courage, And You Will Understand That Prayer Is An Education.

...it All, Maybe, Most Likely, Indeed, Might Turn Out For The Best.

Man Is A Pliable Animal, A Being Who Gets Accustomed To Everything!

There Is Nothing More Alluring To Man Than Freedom Of Conscience, But Neither Is There Anything More Agonizing.

A Special Form Of Misery Had Begun To Oppress Him Of Late. There Was Nothing Poignant, Nothing Acute About It; But There Was A Feeling Of Permanence, Of Eternity About It; It Brought A Foretaste Of Hopeless Years Of This Cold Leaden Misery, A Foretaste Of An Eternity "on A Square Yard Of Space.

Man Only Likes To Count His Troubles, But He Does Not Count His Joys.

The Golden Age Is The Most Implausible Of All Dreams. But For It Men Have Given Up Their Life And Strength; For The Sake Of It Prophets Have Died And Been Slain; Without It The People Will Not Live And Cannot Die.

I Must Have Justice, Or I Will Destroy Myself. And Not Justice In Some Remote And Infinite Time And Space, But Here On Earth...i Want To See With My Own Eyes The Lamb Lie Down With The Lion And The Victim Rise Up And Embrace His Murderer. I Want To Be There When Everyone Suddenly Understands What It Has All Been About. All The Religions Of The World Are Built On This Longing, And I Am A Believer.

One Can Tell A Child Everything, Anything. I Have Often Been Struck By The Fact That Parents Know Their Children So Little. They Should Not Conceal So Much From Them. How Well Even Little Children Understand That Their Parents Conceal Things From Them, Because They Consider Them Too Young To Understand! Children Are Capable Of Giving Advice In The Most Important Matters.

Because I'm A Karamazov. Because When I Fall Into The Abyss, I Go Straight Into It, Head Down And Heels Up, And I'm Even Pleased That I'm Falling In Just Such A Humiliating Position, And For Me I Find It Beautiful.

Accept Suffering And Achieve Atonement Through It — That Is What You Must Do.

You Pass By A Little Child, You Pass By, Spiteful, With Ugly Words, With Wrathful Heart; You May Not Have Noticed The Child, But He Has Seen You, And Your Image, Unseemly And Ignoble, May Remain In His Defenseless Heart. You Don't Know It, But You May Have Sown An Evil Seed In Him And It May Grow, And All Because You Were Not Careful Before The Child, Because You Did Not Foster In Yourself A Careful, Actively Benevolent Love.

A Widow, The Mother Of A Family, And From Her Heart She Produces Chords To Which My Whole Being Responds.

One's Own Free Unfettered Choice, One's Own Caprice-however Wild It May Be, One's Own Fancy Worked Up At Times To Frenzy-is That Very "most Advantageous Advantage" Which We Have Overlooked, Which Comes Under No Classification And Against Which All Systems And Theories Are Continually Being Shattered To Atoms... [an]will Attain His Object-that Is, Convince Himself He Is A Man And Not A Piano-key!

I Tell You Solemnly, That I Have Many Times Tried To Become An Insect. But I Was Not Equal Even To That. I Swear, Gentlemen, That To Be Too Conscious Is An Illness — A Real Thorough-going Illness.

I Wanted To Pray For An Hour, But I Keep Thinking And Thinking, And Always Sick Thoughts, And My Head Aches - What Is The Use Of Praying? - It's Only A Sin! It Is Strange, Too, That I Am Not Sleepy: In Great, Too Great Sorrow, After The First Outbursts One Is Always Sleepy. Men Condemned To Death, They Say, Sleep Very Soundly On The Last Night. And So It Must Be, It Si The Law Of Nature, Otherwise Their Strength Would Not Hold Out... I Lay Down On The Sofa But I Did Not Sleep...

My Soul Bleeds And The Blood Steadily, Silently, Disturbingly Slowly, Swallows Me Whole.

If Man Has One Good Memory To Go By, That May Be Enough To Save Him.

Totally Without Hope One Cannot Live. To Live Without Hope Is To Cease To Live. Hell Is Hopelessness. It Is No Accident That Above The Entrance To Dante's Hell Is The Inscription: "leave Behind All Hope, You Who Enter Here."

I Want To Suffer So That I May Love.

I Do Not Wish You Much Happiness--it Would Bore You; I Do Not Wish You Trouble Either; But, Following The People's Philosophy, I Will Simply Repeat: 'live More' And Try Somehow Not To Be Too Bored; This Useless Wish I Am Adding On My Own.

Let Us First Fulfill Christ's Injunction Ourselves And Only Then Venture To Expect It Of Our Children. Otherwise We Are Not Fathers, But Enemies Of Our Children, And They Are Not Our Children, But Our Enemies, And We Have Made Them Our Enemies Ourselves.

They Won't Let Me ... I Can't Be ... Good!

To Strive Consciously For An Object And To Engage In Engineering -- That Is, Incessantly And Eternally To Make New Roads, Wherever They May Lead.

Man Is Tormented By No Greater Anxiety Than To Find Someone Quickly To Whom He Can Hand Over That Great Gift Of Freedom With Which The Ill-fated Creature Is Born.

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