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I Could Not Become Anything; Neither Good Nor Bad; Neither A Scoundrel Nor An Honest Man; Neither A Hero Nor An Insect. And Now I Am Eking Out My Days In My Corner, Taunting Myself With The Bitter And Entirely Useless Consolation That An Intelligent Man Cannot Seriously Become Anything, That Only A Fool Can Become Something.

-Fyodor Dostoevsky

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I Could Not Become

Fyodor Dostoevsky

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I Could Not Become Anything; Neither Good Nor Bad; Neither A Scoundrel Nor An Honest Man; Neither A Hero Nor An Insect. And Now I Am Eking Out My Days In My Corner, Taunting Myself With The Bitter And Entirely Useless Consolation That An Intelligent Man Cannot Seriously Become Anything, That Only A Fool Can Become Something.

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Life Had Stepped Into The Place Of Theory.

Then Christ Will Say To Us, 'come You Also! Come You Drunkards! Come You Weaklings! Come You Depraved!' And He Will Say To Us, 'vile Creatures, You In The Image Of The Beast And You Who Bear His Mark. All The Same, You Come Too!' And The Wise And Prudent Will Say, 'lord, Why Are You Welcoming Them? And He Will Say, 'o Wise And Prudent, I Am Welcoming Them Because Not One Of Them Has Ever Judged Himself Worthy. And He Will Stretch Out His Arms To Us, And We Shall Fall At His Feet, And Burst Into Sobs, And Then We Shall Understand Everything, Everything! Lord, Your Kingdom Come!

Through Error You Come To The Truth! I Am A Man Because I Err! You Never Reach Any Truth Without Making Fourteen Mistakes And Very Likely A Hundred And Fourteen.

Beauty Would Save The World.

When . . . In The Course Of All These Thousands Of Years Has Man Ever Acted In Accordance With His Own Interests?

There Is Nothing In The World More Difficult Than Candor, And Nothing Easier Than Flattery. If There Is A Hundredth Of A Fraction Of A False Note To Candor, It Immediately Produces Dissonance, And As A Result, Exposure. But In Flattery, Even If Everything Is False Down To The Last Note, It Is Still Pleasant, And People Will Listen Not Without Pleasure; With Coarse Pleasure, Perhaps, But Pleasure Nevertheless.

Everything Will Come In Due Course, If You Have The Gumption To Wait For It.

Let It Not Be A Beautiful Face,' I Thought, 'but To Make Up For That, Let It Be A Noble, An Expressive, And, Above All, An Extremely Intelligent One.

Sorrow Compressed My Heart, And I Felt I Would Die, And Then... Well, Then I Woke Up.

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!

Love A Man, Even In His Sin, For That Love Is A Likeness Of The Divine Love, And Is The Summit Of Love On Earth.

Men Do Not Accept Their Prophets And Slay Them, But They Love Their Martyrs And Worship Those Whom They Have Tortured To Death.

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.

Talking Nonsense Is The Sole Privilege Mankind Possesses Over The Other Organisms. It's By Talking Nonsense That One Gets To The Truth! I Talk Nonsense, Therefore I'm Human

Faith Does Not, In The Realist, Spring From The Miracle But The Miracle From Faith. If The Realist Once Believes, Then He Is Bound By His Very Realism To Admit The Miraculous Also.

A Just Cause Is Not Ruined By A Few Mistakes.

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

Only One Thing Matters, One Thing; To Be Able To Dare!

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.

Sometimes A Man Is Intensely, Even Passionately, Attached To Suffering — That Is A Fact.

If The Person Laughs Well, They Are A Good Person.

When I Look Back On My Past And Think How Much Time I Wasted On Nothing, How Much Time Has Been Lost In Futilities, Errors, Laziness, Incapacity To Live; How Little I Appreciated It, How Many Times I Sinned Against My Heart And Soul-then My Heart Bleeds. Life Is A Gift, Life Is Happiness, Every Minute Can Be An Eternity Of Happiness.

If He's Alive, Everything Is In His Power! Whose Fault Is It That He Doesn't Understand That?

Who Doesn't Desire His Fathers Death?

Lying Is A Delightful Thing, For It Leads To Truth.

You Can Be Sincere And Still Be Stupid.

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. When He Has No Respect For Anyone, He Can No Longer Love, And, In Order To Divert Himself, Having No Love In Him, He Yields To His Impulses, Indulges In The Lowest Forms Of Pleasure, And Behaves In The End Like An Animal. And It All Comes From Lying - Lying To Others And To Yourself.

Walking Along The Crowded Row He Met The One He Used To Know.

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

Woe To The Suicides! I Believe That There Can Be None More Miserable Than They. Oh, There Are Some Who Remain Proud And Fierce Even In Hell, In Spite Of Their Certain Knowledge And Contemplation Of The Absolute Truth; There Are Some Fearful Ones Who Have Given Themselves Over To Satan And His Proud Spirit Entirely. For Such, Hell Is Voluntary And Ever Consuming; They Are Tortured By Their Own Choice. For They Have Cursed Themselves, Cursing God And Life. And They Will Burn In The Fire Of Their Own Wrath Forever And Yearn For Death And Annihilation. But They Will Not Attain To Death.

To Live Without Hope Is To Cease To Live.

Hoping For The Best

An Anguish Of Longing Would Boil Up Inside Me; A Hysterical Thirst For Contradictions And Contrasts Would Appear, And I Would Embark On Dissipations.

Love The Animals, Love The Plants, Love Everything. If You Love Everything, You Will Perceive The Divine Mystery In Things. Once You Perceive It, You Will Begin To Comprehend It Better Every Day. And You Will Come At Last To Love The Whole World With An All-embracing Love.

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.

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

It's In Despair That You Find The Sharpest Pleasures, Particularly When You Are Most Acutely Aware Of The Hopelessness Of Your Position.

Humiliate The Reason And Distort The Soul.

In The Realist, Faith Is Not Born From Miracles, But Miracles From Faith.

To Love Is To Suffer And There Can Be No Love Otherwise.

Man Has Such A Predilection For Systems And Abstract Deductions That He Is Ready To Distort The Truth Intentionally He Is Ready To Deny The Evidence Of His Senses Only To Justify His Logic.

If You Were To Destroy The Belief In Immortality In Mankind, Not Only Love But Every Living Force On Which The Continuation Of All Life In The World Depended, Would Dry Up At Once.

Continuation Of Life

It Takes Something More Than Intelligence To Act Intelligently.

Crime And Punishment

Coming At Twenty To His Father's House, Which Was A Very Sink Of Filthy Debauchery, He, Chaste And Pure As He Was, Simply Withdrew In Silence When To Look On Was Unbearable, But Without The Slightest Sign Of Contempt Or Condemnation. His Father, Who Had Once Been In A Dependent Position, And So Was Sensitive And Ready To Take Offense, Met Him At First With Distrust And Sullenness.

The Secret Of Man's Being Is Not Only To Live But To Have Something To Live For.

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.

But Twice-two-makes-four Is For All That A Most Insupportable Thing. Twice-two-makes-four Is, In My Humble Opinion, Nothing But A Piece Of Impudence. Twice-two-makes-four Is A Farcical, Dressed-up Fellow Who Stands Across Your Path With Arms Akimbo And Spits At You.

How Good Life Is When One Does Something Good And Just!

My God, A Moment Of Bliss. Why, Isn't That Enough For A Whole Lifetime?

I've Made A Terrible Confession To You, He Concluded Gloomily. Do Appreciate It, Gentlemen. And It's Not Enough, Not Enough To Appreciate It, You Must Not Just Appreciate It, It Should Also Be Precious To You, And If Not, If This, Too, Goes Past Your Souls, Then It Means You Really Do Not Respect Me, Gentlemen. I Tell You That, And I Will Die Of Shame At Having Confessed To Such Men As You.

There Were Moments When I Hated Everybody I Came Across, Innocent Or Guilty, And Looked At Them As Thieves Who Were Robbing Me Of My Life With Impunity. The Most Unbearable Misfortune Is When You Yourself Become Unjust, Malignant, Vile; You Realize It, You Even Reproach Yourself - But You Just Can't Help It.

But Do You Understand, I Cry To Him, Do You Understand That If You Have The Guillotine In The Forefront, And With Such Glee, It's For The Sole Reason That Cutting Heads Off Is The Easiest Thing, And Having An Idea Is Difficult!

Man Is A Creature That Can Get Accustomed To Anything, And I Think That Is The Best Definition Of Him.

I Wanted To Discuss The Suffering Of Humanity In General, But Perhaps We'd Better Confine Ourselves To The Sufferings Of Children.

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.

Can A Man Of Perception Respect Himself At All?

Even There, In The Mines, Underground, I May Find A Human Heart In Another Convict And Murderer By My Side, And I May Make Friends With Him, For Even There One May Live And Love And Suffer. One May Thaw And Revive A Frozen Heart In That Convict, One May Wait Upon Him For Years, And At Last Bring Up From The Dark Depths A Lofty Soul, A Feeling, Suffering Creature; One May Bring Forth An Angel, Create A Hero! There Are So Many Of Them, Hundreds Of Them, And We Are All To Blame For Them. [...] If They Drive God From The Earth, We Shall Shelter Him Underground.

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!"

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

Do You Know I Don't Know How One Can Walk By A Tree And Not Be Happy At The Sight Of It? How Can One Talk To A Man And Not Be Happy In Loving Him! Oh, It's Only That I'm Not Able To Express It...and What Beautiful Things There Are At Every Step, That Even The Most Hopeless Man Must Feel To Be Beautiful! Look At A Child! Look At God's Sunrise! Look At The Grass, How It Grows! Look At The Eyes That Gaze At You And Love You!

If One Wanted To Crush And Destroy A Man Entirely, To Mete Out To Him The Most Terrible Punishment, All One Would Have To Do Would Be To Make Him Do Work That Was Completely And Utterly Devoid Of Usefulness And Meaning.

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!

One Must First Learn To Live Oneself Before One Blames Others.

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!

Power Is Given Only To Those Who Dare To Lower Themselves And Pick It Up. Only One Thing Matters, One Thing; To Be Able To Dare!

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.

There Is No Subject So Old That Something New Cannot Be Said About It.

New Relationship

To Think Too Much Is A Disease.

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.

People Speak Sometimes About The "bestial" Cruelty Of Man, But That Is Terribly Unjust And Offensive To Beasts, No Animal Could Ever Be So Cruel As A Man, So Artfully, So Artistically Cruel.

I Almost Do Not Exist Now And I Know It; God Knows What Lives In Me In Place Of Me.

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

It Is Not As A Child That I Believe And Confess Jesus Christ. My Hosanna Is Born Of A Furnace Of Doubt.

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.

With Love One Can Live Even Without Happiness.

Life [had] Replaced Logic.

They Were Like Two Enemies In Love With One Another.

Bad People Are To Be Found Everywhere, But Even Among The Worst There May Be Something Good.

And It Is So Simple... The One Thing Is - Love Thy Neighbor As Thyself - That Is The One Thing. That Is All, Nothing Else Is Needed. You Will Instantly Find How To Live.

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

Right Attitudes Produces Right Action

I Could Not Become Anything; Neither Good Nor Bad; Neither A Scoundrel Nor An Honest Man; Neither A Hero Nor An Insect. And Now I Am Eking Out My Days In My Corner, Taunting Myself With The Bitter And Entirely Useless Consolation That An Intelligent Man Cannot Seriously Become Anything, That Only A Fool Can Become Something.

Man Is Stupid, Phenomenally Stupid.

Of Course I Shall Go Astray Often...for Who Does Not Make Mistakes? But I Cannot Go Far Wrong For I Have Seen The Truth.

Making Mistakes

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.

I Sometimes Think Love Consists Precisely Of The Voluntary Gift By The Loved Object Of The Right To Tyrannize Over It.

Nothing Could Be More Absurd Than Moral Lessons At Such A Moment! Oh, Self-satisfied People: With What Proud Self-satisfaction Such Babblers Are Ready To Utter Their Pronouncements! If They Only Knew To What Degree I Myself Understand All The Loathsomeness Of My Present Condition, They Wouldn't Have The Heart To Teach Me.

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

The Enemies Of Living Life; Outdated Little Liberals, Afraid Of Their Own Independence; Lackeys Of Thought, Enemies Of The Person And Freedom, Decrepit Preachers Of Carrion And Rot! What Do They Have: Gray Heads, The Golden Mean, The Most Abject And Philistine Giftlessness, Envious Equality, Equality Without Personal Dignity, Equality As Understood By A Lackey Or A Frenchman Of The Year Ninety-three...and Scoundrells, Above All, Scoundrels, Scoundrels Everywhere!

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

But People Will Laugh At All Sorts Of Things.

Neither Man Nor Nation Can Exist Without A Sublime Idea.

They Were Renewed By Love; The Heart Of Each Held Infinite Sources Of Life For The Heart Of The Other.

Love Is Such A Priceless Treasure That You Can Buy The Whole World With It, And Redeem Not Only Your Own But Other People's Sins. Go, And Do Not Be Afraid.

I Am A Sick Man...i Am A Spiteful Man. An Unattractive Man. I Think That My Liver Hurts.

I Suddenly Dreamt That I Picked Up The Revolver And Aimed It Straight At My Heart My Heart, And Not My Head; And I Had Determined Beforehand To Fire At My Head, At My Right Temple. After Aiming At My Chest I Waited A Second Or Two, And Suddenly My Candle , My Table, And The Wall In Front Of Me Began Moving And Heaving. I Made Haste To Pull The Trigger.

When Reason Fails, The Devil Helps!

In Such Situations, Of Course, People Don't Nurse Their Anger Silently, They Moan Aloud; But These Are Not Frank, Straightforward Moans, There Is A Kind Of Cunning Malice In Them, And That's The Whole Point. Those Very Moans Express The Sufferer's Delectation; If He Did Not Enjoy His Moans, He Wouldn't Be Moaning.

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

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.

Reason And Knowledge Have Always Played A Secondary, Subordinate, Auxiliary Role In The Life Of Peoples, And This Will Always Be The Case. A People Is Shaped And Driven Forward By An Entirely Different Kind Of Force, One Which Commands And Coerces Them And The Origin Of Which Is Obscure And Inexplicable Despite The Reality Of Its Presence.

Alyosha's Heart Could Not Bear Uncertainty, For The Nature Of His Love Was Always Active. He Could Not Love Passively; Once He Loved, He Immediately Also Began To Help.

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.

Do You Understand, Sir, Do You Understand What It Means When You Have Absolutely Nowhere To Turn?" Marmeladov's Question Came Suddenly Into His Mind "for Every Man Must Have Somewhere To Turn.

Even If We Are Occupied With Important Things And Even If We Attain Honour Or Fall Into Misfortune, Still Let Us Remember How Good It Once Was Here, When We Were All Together United By A Good And Kind Feeling Which Made Us Perhaps Better Than We Are.

I May Be Mistaken But It Seems To Me That A Man May Be Judged By His Laugh, And That If At First Encounter You Like The Laugh Of A Person Completely Unknown To You, You May Say With Assurance That He Is Good.

The Greater The Stupidity, The Greater The Clarity. Stupidity Is Brief And Guileless, While Wit Equivocates And Hides. Wit Is A Scoundrel, While Stupidity Is Honest And Sincere.

If You Are Penitent, You Love. And If You Love You Are Of God. All Things Are Atoned For, All Things Are Saved By Love. If I, A Sinner Even As You Are, Am Tender With You And Have Pity On You, How Much More Will God Have Pity Upon You. Love Is Such A Priceless Treasure That You Can Redeem The Whole World By It, And Cleanse Not Only Your Own Sins But The Sins Of Others.

What Man Wants Is Simply Independent Choice, Whatever That Independence May Cost And Wherever It May Lead.

Nothing In This World Is Harder Than Speaking The Truth, Nothing Easier Than Flattery.

I Must Add... My Gratitude To You For The Attention With Which You Have Listened To Me, For, From My Numerous Observations, Our Liberals Are Never Capable Of Letting Anyone Else Have A Conviction Of His Own Without At Once Meeting Their Opponent With Abuse Or Even Something Worse.

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

I Punish Myself For My Whole Life, My Whole Life I Punish.

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.

We Do Not Understand That Life Is Paradise, For It Suffices Only To Wish To Understand It, And At Once Paradise Will Appear In Front Of Us In Its Beauty.

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

For, After All, You Do Grow Up, You Do Outgrow Your Ideals, Which Turn To Dust And Ashes, Which Are Shattered Into Fragments; And If You Have No Other Life, You Just Have To Build One Up Out Of These Fragments.

God Is The Pain Of The Fear Of Death

Beggars, Especially Noble Beggars, Should Never Show Themselves In The Street; They Should Ask For Alms Through The Newspapers. It's Still Possible To Love One's Neighbor Abstractly, And Even Occasionally From A Distance, But Hardly Ever Up Close.

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

Russian Literature

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.

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.

And Do You Know, Do You Know That Mankind Can Live Without The Englishman, It Can Live Without Germany, It Can Live Only Too Well Without The Russian Man, It Can Live Without Science, Without Bread, And It Only Cannot Live Without Beauty, For Then There Would Be Nothing At All To Do In The World! The Whole Secret Is Here, The Whole Of History Is Here. Science Itself Would Not Stand For A Minute Without Beauty

You See, Gentlemen, Reason Is An Excellent Thing, There’s No Disputing That, But Reason Is Nothing But Reason And Satisfies Only The Rational Side Of Man’s Nature, While Will Is A Manifestation Of The Whole Life, That Is, Of The Whole Human Life Including Reason And All The Impulses. And Although Our Life, In This Manifestation Of It, Is Often Worthless, Yet It Is Life And Not Simply Extracting Square Roots.

Forgive Me... For My Love -for Ruining You With My Love.

If God Does Not Exist, Then Everything Is Permissible.

I Swear To You, Sirs, That Excessive Consciousness Is A Disease--a Genuine, Absolute Disease.

Reason Is The Slave Of Passion.

People With New Ideas, People With The Faintest Capacity For Saying Something New, Are Extremely Few In Number, Extraordinarily So, In Fact.

.. But Do You Understand, I Cry To Him, Do You Understand That Along With Happiness, In The Exact Same Way, In Perfectly Equal Proportion, Man Also Needs Unhappiness

For A Woman, All Resurrection, All Salvation, From Whatever Perdition, Lies In Love; In Fact, It Is Her Only Way To It.

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.

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

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!

Love The Animals. God Has Given Them The Rudiments Of Thought And Joy Untroubled. Don't Trouble It, Don't Harass Them, Don't Deprive Them Of Their Happiness, Don't Work Against God's Intent.

The World Has Proclaimed The Reign Of Freedom, Especially Of Late, But What Do We See In This Freedom Of Theirs? Nothing But Slavery And Self-destruction! For The World Says: "you Have Desires And So Satisfy Them, For You Have The Same Rights As The Most Rich And Powerful. Don't Be Afraid Of Satisfying Them And Even Multiply Your Desires."

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.

It Was A Wonderful Night, Such A Night As Is Only Possible When We Are Young, Dear Reader.

Brother, I’m Not Depressed And Haven’t Lost Spirit. Life Everywhere Is Life, Life Is In Ourselves And Not In The External. There Will Be People Near Me, And To Be A Human Being Among Human Beings, And Remain One Forever, No Matter What Misfortunes Befall, Not To Become Depressed, And Not To Falter – This Is What Life Is, Herein Lies Its Task.

One Must Be A Great Man Indeed To Be Able To Hold Out Even Against Common Sense." "or Else A Fool.

The Chief Thing Is To Love Others Like Yourself, That's The Chief Thing, And That's Everything; Nothing Else Is Wanted - You Will Find Out At Once How To Arrange It All.

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

If It Were Considered Desirable To Destroy A Human Being, The Only Thing Necessary Would Be To Give His Work A Character Of Uselessness

If Thou Love Each Thing Thou Wilt Perceive The Mystery Of God In All.

You See I Kept Asking Myself Then: Why Am I So Stupid That If Others Are Stupid—and I Know They Are—yet I Won't Be Wiser?

Pray To God For Gladness. Be Glad As Children, As The Birds Of Heaven. And Let Not The Sin Of Men Confound You In Your Doings. Fear Not That It Will Wear Away Your Work And Hinder Its Being Accomplished. Do Not Say, 'sin Is Mighty, Wickedness Is Mighty, Evil Environment Is Mighty, And We Are Lonely And Helpless, And Evil Environment Is Wearing Us Away And Hindering Our Good Work From Being Done.' Fly From That Dejection, Children!

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

It Is Amazing What One Ray Of Sunshine Can Do For A Man!

This Is My Last Message To You: In Sorrow, Seek Happiness.

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.

I Swear To You Gentlemen, That To Be Overly Conscious Is A Sickness, A Real, Thorough Sickness.

At First, Art Imitates Life. Then Life Will Imitate Art.then Life Will Find Its Very Existence From The Arts.

Man Is A Mystery. It Needs To Be Unravelled, And If You Spend Your Whole Life Unravelling It, Don't Say That You've Wasted Time. I Am Studying That Mystery Because I Want To Be A Human Being.

Realists Do Not Fear The Results Of Their Study.

No, Evidently Habit Means A Lot. The Devil Knows What Habit Can Do To A Person.

If Someone Proved To Me That Christ Is Outside The Truth, And That In Reality The Truth Were Outside Of Christ, Then I Should Prefer To Remain With Christ Rather Than With The Truth.

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.

Where Is It I've Read That Someone Condemned To Death Says Or Thinks, An Hour Before His Death, That If He Had To Live On Some High Rock, On Such A Narrow Ledge That He'd Only Room To Stand, And The Ocean, Everlasting Darkness, Everlasting Solitude, Everlasting Tempest Around Him, If He Had To Remain Standing On A Square Yard Of Space All His Life, A Thousand Years, Eternity, It Were Better To Live So Than To Die At Once. Only To Live, To Live And Live! Life, Whatever It May Be!

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.

The Man Who Lies To Himself Can Be More Easily Offended Than Anyone Else. You Know It Is Sometimes Very Pleasant To Take Offense, Isn't It? A Man May Know That Nobody Has Insulted Him, But That He Has Invented The Insult For Himself, Has Lied And Exaggerated To Make It Picturesque, Has Caught At A Word And Made A Mountain Out Of A Molehill--he Knows That Himself, Yet He Will Be The First To Take Offense, And Will Revel In His Resentment Till He Feels Great Pleasure In It.

If You Happen To Have A Wart On Your Nose Or Forehead, You Cannot Help Imagining That No One In The World Has Anything Else To Do But Stare At Your Wart, Laugh At It, And Condemn You For It, Even Though You Have Discovered America.

But Man Is So Addicted To Systems And To Abstract Conclusions That He Is Prepared Deliberately To Distort The Truth, To Close His Eyes And Ears, But Justify His Logic At All Cost.

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?

Fathers, Provoke Not Your Children To Wrath.

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

Men Like To To Count Their Troubles; Few Calculate Their Happiness.

You Will Burn And You Will Burn Out; You Will Be Healed And Come Back Again.

Suppose, Gentleman, That Man Is Not Stupid.

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.

May You Be For Ever Blessed For That Moment Of Bliss And Happiness Which You Gave To Another Lonely And Grateful Heart. Isn't Such A Moment Sufficient For The Whole Of One's Life?

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.

We Sometimes Encounter People, Even Perfect Strangers, Who Begin To Interest Us At First Sight, Somehow Suddenly, All At Once, Before A Word Has Been Spoken.

She Looked Much Younger Than Her Age, Indeed, Which Is Almost Always The Case With Women Who Retain Serenity Of Spirit, Sensitiveness And Pure Sincere Warmth Of Heart To Old Age.

And Why Are You So Firmly, So Triumphantly, Convinced That Only The Normal And The Positive--in Other Words, Only What Is Conducive To Welfare--is For The Advantage Of Man? Is Not Reason In Error As Regards Advantage? Does Not Man, Perhaps, Love Something Besides Well-being? Perhaps He Is Just As Fond Of Suffering? Perhaps Suffering Is Just As Great A Benefit To Him As Well-being? Man Is Sometimes Extraordinarily, Passionately, In Love With Suffering, And That Is A Fact.

Neither A Person Nor A Nation Can Exist Without Some Higher Idea. And There Is Only One Higher Idea On Earth, And It Is The Idea Of The Immortality Of The Human Soul, For All Other "higher" Ideas Of Life By Which Humans Might Live Derive From That Idea Alone.

I Know That You Don't Believe It, But Indeed, Life Will Bring You Through. You Will Live It Down In Time. What You Need Now Is Fresh Air, Fresh Air, Fresh Air!

Loving Someone Is Different From Being In Love With Someone. You Can Hate Someone You're In Love With

Although Your Mind Works, Your Heart Is Darkened With Depravity; And Without A Pure Heart There Can Be No Complete And True Consciousness

They Wanted To Speak, But Could Not; Tears Stood In Their Eyes. They Were Both Pale And Thin; But Those Sick Pale Faces Were Bright With The Dawn Of A New Future, Of A Full Resurrection Into A New Life. They Were Renewed By Love; The Heart Of Each Held Infinite Sources Of Life For The Heart Of The Other.

It Is Not Possible To Eat Me Without Insisting That I Sing Praises Of My Devourer?

I Am A Sick Man...i Am A Wicked Man. An Unattractive Man. I Think My Liver Hurts. However, I Don't Know A Fig About My Sickness, And Am Not Sure What It Is That Hurts Me. I Am Not Being Treated And Never Have Been, Though I Respect Medicine. What's More, I Am Also Superstitious In The Extreme; Well, At Least Enough To Respect Medicine.

And What's Strange, What Would Be Marvelous, Is Not That God Should Really Exist; The Marvel Is That Such An Idea, The Idea Of The Necessity Of God, Could Enter The Head Of Such A Savage, Vicious Beast As Man.

Listen, In Dreams And Especially In Nightmares, From Indigestion Or Anything, A Man Sees Sometimes Such Artistic Visions, Such Complex And Real Actuality, Such Events, Even A Whole World Of Events, Woven Into Such A Plot, With Such Unexpected Details From The Most Exalted Matters To The Last Button On A Cuff, As I Swear Leo Tolstoy Has Never Invented.

There Are Things Which A Man Is Afraid To Tell Even To Himself, And Every Decent Man Has A Number Of Such Things Stored Away In His Mind.

Finding Yourself

Every Man Needs A Place To Go To.

I Think The Devil Doesn't Exist, But Man Has Created Him, He Has Created Him In His Own Image And Likeness.

I Want To Suffer So That I May Love.

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.

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.

But To Fall In Love Does Not Mean To Love. One Can Fall In Love And Still Hate.

Falling In Love

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

Money Is Coined Liberty, And So It Is Ten Times Dearer To A Man Who Is Deprived Of Freedom. If Money Is Jingling In His Pocket, He Is Half Consoled, Even Though He Cannot Spend It.

Man Is A Creative Animal, Doomed To Strive Toward A Goal, Engaged In Full-time Engineering.

- What Is A Socialist? - That's When All Are Equal And All Have Property In Common, There Are No Marriages, And Everyone Has Any Religion And Laws He Likes Best. You Are Not Old Enough To Understand That Yet.

Every Ant Knows The Formula Of Its Ant-hill, Every Bee Knows The Formula Of Its Beehive. They Know It In Their Own Way, Not In Our Way. Only Humankind Does Not Know Its Own Formula.

To Kill Someone For Committing Murder Is A Punishment Incomparably Worse Than The Crime Itself. Murder By Legal Sentence Is Immeasurably More Terrible Than Murder By Brigands.

It Is Better To Be Unhappy And Know The Worst, Than To Be Happy In A Fool's Paradise.

The Whole Work Of Man Really Seems To Consist In Nothing But Proving To Himself Every Minute That He Is A Man And Not A Piano Key.

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

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.

It’s Not God That I Do Not Accept, You Understand, It Is This World Of God’s, Created By God, That I Do Not Accept And Cannot Agree To Accept.

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