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I Know You'll Probably Get Angry With Me For That, Shout, Stamp Your Feet: "speak Just For Yourself And Your Miseries In The Underground, And Don't Go Saying 'we All.'" Excuse Me, Gentleman, But I Am Not Justifying Myself With This Allishness. As Far As I Myself Am Concerned, I Have Merely Carried To An Extreme In My Life What You Have Not Dared To Carry Even Halfway, And, What's More, You've Taken Your Cowardice For Good Sense, And Found Comfort In Thus Deceiving Yourselves. So That I, Perhaps, Come Out Even More "living" Than You.

-Fyodor Dostoevsky

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I Know You'll Probably

Fyodor Dostoevsky

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I Know You'll Probably Get Angry With Me For That, Shout, Stamp Your Feet: "speak Just For Yourself And Your Miseries In The Underground, And Don't Go Saying 'we All.'" Excuse Me, Gentleman, But I Am Not Justifying Myself With This Allishness. As Far As I Myself Am Concerned, I Have Merely Carried To An Extreme In My Life What You Have Not Dared To Carry Even Halfway, And, What's More, You've Taken Your Cowardice For Good Sense, And Found Comfort In Thus Deceiving Yourselves. So That I, Perhaps, Come Out Even More "living" Than You.

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God Has Such Gladness Every Time He Sees From Heaven That A Sinner Is Praying To Him With All His Heart, As A Mother Has When She Sees The First Smile On Her Baby's Face.

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.

I Have A Plan-to Go Mad.

There Is Nothing Easier Than Lopping Off Heads And Nothing Harder Than Developing Ideas.

I've Long Stopped Worrying About Who Invented Whom - God Man Or Man God.

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.

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."

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.

A Just Cause Is Not Ruined By A Few Mistakes.

Man, So Long As He Remains Free, Has No More Constant And Agonizing Anxiety Than Find As Quickly As Possible Someone To Worship.

Lack Of Originality, Everywhere, All Over The World, From Time Immemorial, Has Always Been Considered The Foremost Quality And The Recommendation Of The Active, Efficient And Practical Man.

To Achieve Perfection, One Must First Begin By Not Understanding Many Things! And If We Understand Too Quickly, We May Not Understand Well.

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.

I Myself Will Perhaps Cry Out With All The Rest, Looking At The Mother Embracing Her Child's Tormentor: 'just Art Thou, O Lord!' But I Do Not Want To Cry Out With Them. While There's Still Time, I Hasten To Defend Myself Against It, And Therefore I Absolutely Renounce All Higher Harmony. It Is Not Worth One Little Tear Of Even That One Tormented Child Who Beat Her Chest With Her Little Fist And Prayed To 'dear God' In A Stinking Outhouse With Her Unredeemed Tears!

Man Is Sometimes Extraordinarily, Passionately, In Love With Suffering.

The Mystery Of Human Existence Lies Not In Just Staying Alive, But In Finding Something To Live For.

Neither Man Nor Nation Can Exist Without A Sublime Idea.

Only By Self-respect Will You Compel Others To Respect You.

In The Newspapers I Read A Biography About An American. He Left His Whole Huge Fortune To Factories And For The Positive Sciences, His Skeleton To The Students At The Academy There, And His Skin To Make A Drum So As To Have The American National Anthem Drummed On It Day And Night.

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

To Cook Your Hare You Must First Catch It.

A Fool With A Heart And No Sense Is Just As Unhappy As A Fool With Sense And No Heart.

The Russian Soul Is A Dark Place.

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

I Tell You, The Old-fashioned Doctor Who Treated All Diseases Has Completely Disappeared, Now There Are Only Specialists, And They Advertise All The Time In The Newspapers. If Your Nose Hurts, They Send You To Paris: There's A European Specialist There, He Treats Noses. You Go To Paris, He Examines Your Nose: I Can Treat Only Your Right Nostril, He Says, I Don't Treat Left Nostrils, It's Not My Specialty, But After Me, Go To Vienna, There's A Separate Specialist There Who Will Finish Treating Your Left Nostril.

Two And Two Make Four. Nature Doesn't Ask Your Advice. She Isn't Interested In Your Preferences Or Whether Or Not You Approve Of Her Laws. You Must Accept Nature As She Is With All The Consequences That That Implies.

It Is A Law Of Nature That Every Decent Man On Earth Is Bound To Be A Coward And A Slave

Being At A Loss To Resolve These Questions, I Am Resolved To Leave Them Without Any Resolution.

But People Will Laugh At All Sorts Of Things.

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

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.

Grown-up People Do Not Know That A Child Can Give Exceedingly Good Advice Even In The Most Difficult Case.

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.

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

Drive Nature Out Of The Door And It Will Fly In At The Window

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 Though I Suffer For You, Yet It Eases My Heart To Suffer For You.

Every Member Of The Society Spies On The Rest, And It Is His Duty To Inform Against Them. All Are Slaves And Equal In Their Slavery... The Great Thing About It Is Equality... Slaves Are Bound To Be Equal.

Every Man Looks Out For Himself, And He Has The Happiest Life Who Manages To Hoodwink Himself Best Of All.

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.

Ah, Misha, He Has A Stormy Spirit. His Mind Is In Bondage. He Is Haunted By A Great, Unsolved Doubt. He Is One Of Those Who Don't Want Millions, But An Answer To Their Questions.

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

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.

I Am Crazy About Mysterious Things.

Mysterious Things

I Agree That Two Times Two Makes Four Is An Excellent Thing; But If We Are Dispensing Praise, Then Two Times Two Makes Five Is Sometimes A Most Charming Little Thing As Well.

I Know You'll Probably Get Angry With Me For That, Shout, Stamp Your Feet: "speak Just For Yourself And Your Miseries In The Underground, And Don't Go Saying 'we All.'" Excuse Me, Gentleman, But I Am Not Justifying Myself With This Allishness. As Far As I Myself Am Concerned, I Have Merely Carried To An Extreme In My Life What You Have Not Dared To Carry Even Halfway, And, What's More, You've Taken Your Cowardice For Good Sense, And Found Comfort In Thus Deceiving Yourselves. So That I, Perhaps, Come Out Even More "living" Than You.

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

Every Blade Of Grass, Every Insect, Ant, And Golden Bee, All So Amazingly Know Their Path, Though They Have Not Intelligence, They Bear Witness To The Mystery Of God And Continually Accomplish It Themselves.

In A Morbid Condition Of The Brain, Dreams Often Have A Singular Actuality, Vividness, And Extraordinary Semblance Of Reality.

Or Renounce Life Altogether! Accept Fate Obediently As It Is, Once And For All, And Stifle Everything In Myself, Renouncing Any Right To Act, To Live, To Love.

It Is Always So, When We Are Unhappy We Feel More Strongly The Unhappiness Of Others; Our Feeling Is Not Shattered, But Becomes Concentrated.

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!

Truly Great Men Must, I Think, Experience Great Sorrow On The Earth.

It Suddenly Seemed To Me That I Was Lonely, That Everyone Was Forsaking Me And Going Away From Me.

... You Can Never Be Sure Of What Has Passed Between Husband And Wife Or Lover And Mistress.

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.

Drowning Men, It Is Said, Cling To Wisps Of Straw.

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

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

Money Is Coined Liberty.

Until You Have Become Really, In Actual Fact, As Brother To Everyone, Brotherhood Will Not Come To Pass.

... Active Love Is A Harsh And Fearful Thing Compared With The Love In Dreams. Love In Dreams Thirsts For Immediate Action, Quickly Performed, And With Everyone Watching. Indeed, It Will Go As Far As The Giving Even Of One's Life, Provided It Does Not Take Long But Is Soon Over, As On Stage, And Eveyone Is Looking On And Praising. Whereas Active Love Is Labor And Persistence, And For Some People, Perhaps, A Whole Science.

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.

Above All, Do Not Lie To Yourself.

Occupy Yourself

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.

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

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.

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?

Man Grows Used To Everything, The Scoundrel!

With Love One Can Live Even Without Happiness.

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

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

It Is Not The Brains That Matter Most, But That Which Guides Them — The Character, The Heart, Generous Qualities, Progressive Ideas.

Humiliate The Reason And Distort The Soul.

Can A Man Of Perception Respect Himself At All?

Luxuries Are Easy To Take Up But Very Difficult To Give Up

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

Generally Speaking, Our Prisoners Were Capable Of Loving Animals, And If They Had Been Allowed They Would Have Delighted To Rear Large Numbers Of Domestic Animals And Birds In The Prison. And I Wonder What Other Activity Could Better Have Softened And Refined Their Harsh And Brutal Natures Than This. But It Was Not Allowed. Neither The Regulations Nor The Nature Of The Prison Made It Possible.

You Will Have Many Enemies, But Even Your Foes Will Love You. Life Will Bring You Many Misfortunes, But You Will Find Your Happiness In Them, And Will Bless Life And Will Make Others Bless It-which Is What Matters Most.

Beauty Is A Terrible And Awful Thing! It Is Terrible Because It Has Not Been Fathomed, For God Sets Us Nothing But Riddles. Here The Boundaries Meet And All Contradictions Exist Side By Side.

I Am Too Young And I've Loved You Too Much.

I Think Everyone Must Love Life More Than Anything Else In The World.' 'love Life More Than The Meaning Of It?' 'yes, Certainly. Love It Regardless Of Logic, As You Say. Yes, Most Certainly Regardless Of Logic, For Only Then Will I Grasp Its Meaning. That's What I've Been Vaguely Aware Of For A Long Time. Half Your Work Is Done, Ivan: You Love Life. Now You Must Try To Do The Second Half And You Are Saved.

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.

The Most Offensive Is Not Their Lying - One Can Always Forgive Lying - Lying Is A Delightful Thing, For It Leads To Truth - What Is Offensive Is That They Lie And Worship Their Own Lying.

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.

Dreams Seem To Be Spurred On Not By Reason But By Desire, Not By The Head But By The Heart, And Yet What Complicated Tricks My Reason Has Played Sometimes In Dreams.

There Is No Object On Earth Which Cannot Be Looked At From A Cosmic Point Of View.

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

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

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

Gambling Is A Most Foolish And Imprudent Pursuit.

If There Is No God, Then I Am God.

There Is No God

My Friends, God Is Necessary For Me If Only Because He Is The One Being Who Can Be Loved Eternally.

Man Is Unhappy Because He Doesn't Know He's Happy. If Anyone Finds Out He'll Become Happy At Once.

The Perpetration Of A Crime Is Accompanied By Illness!

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

Of Course My Jokes Are In Poor Taste, Inappropriate, And Confused; They Reveal My Lack Of Security. But That Is Because I Have No Respect For Myself.

I Love The Sticky Leaves In Spring, The Blue Sky — That’s All It Is. It’s Not A Matter Of Intellect Or Logic, It’s Loving With One’s Inside, With One’s Stomach.

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

All The Utopias Will Come To Pass Only When We Grow Wings And All People Are Converted Into Angels.

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.

God Is Necessary, And Therefore Must Exist...but I Know That He Does Not And Cannot Exist...don't You Understand That A Man With These Two Thoughts Cannot Go On Living?

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.

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.

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

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...

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

The Jealous Are The Readiest Of All To Forgive, And All Women Know It.

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.

Nature Doesn't Ask Your Permission; It Doesn't Care About Your Wishes, Or Whether You Like Its Laws Or Not. You're Obliged To Accept It As It Is, And Consequently All Its Results As Well.

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

Shower On Him Every Blessing, Drown Him In A Sea Of Happiness, Give Him Economic Prosperity Such That He Should Have Nothing Else To Do But Sleep, Eat Cakes, And Busy Himself With The Continuation Of The Species, And Even Then, Out Of Sheer Ingratitude, Sheer Spite, Man Would Play You Some Nasty Trick.

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.

I Will Put Up With Any Mockery Rather Than Pretend That I Am Satisfied When I Am Hungry.

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.

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.

Actions Are Sometimes Performed In A Masterly And Most Cunning Way, While The Direction Of The Actions Is Deranged And Dependent On Various Morbid Impressions - It's Like A Dream.

Since Man Cannot Live Without Miracles, He Will Provide Himself With Miracles Of His Own Making. He Will Believe In Witchcraft And Sorcery, Even Though He May Otherwise Be A Heretic, An Atheist, And A Rebel.

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.

In A Way There's Only A Fine Shade Of Difference Between The Healthy And The Deranged.

Only The Heart Knows How To Find What Is Precious.

If The Spirit Has Passed Through A Great Many Sensations, Possibly It Can No Longer Be Sated With Them, But Grows More Excited, And Demands More Sensations, And Stronger And Stronger Ones, Until At Length It Falls Exhausted.

I Think That If One Is Faced By Inevitable Destruction -- If A House Is Falling Upon You, For Instance -- One Must Feel A Great Longing To Sit Down, Close One's Eyes And Wait, Come What May . . .

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!

The Soul Is Healed By Being With Children.

‎honoured Sir, Poverty Is Not A Vice, That's A True Saying. Yet I Know Too That Drunkeness Is Not A Virtue, And That's Even Truer. But Beggary, Honoured Sir, Beggary Is A Vice. In Poverty You May Still Retain Your Innate Nobility Of Soul, But In Beggary--never--no One. For Beggary A Man Is Not Chased Out Of Human Society With A Stick, He Is Swept Out With A Broom, So As To Make It As Humiliating As Possible; And Quite Right, Too, Forasmuch As In Beggary As I Am Ready To Be The First To Humiliate Myself.

Life Is In Ourselves And Not In The External.

People Talk Sometimes Of A Bestial Cruelty, But That's A Great Injustice And Insult To The Beasts; A Beast Can Never Be So Cruel As A Man, So Artistically Cruel. The Tiger Only Tears And Gnaws, That's All He Can Do. He Would Never Think Of Nailing People By The Ears, Even If He Were Able To Do It.

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.

Eh, Brother, But Nature Has To Be Corrected And Guided, Otherwise We'd All Drown In Prejudices. Without That There Wouldn't Be Even A Single Great Man.

...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.

Wealth Is The Number Of Things One Can Do Without.

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

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

Falling In Love

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.

The Formula 'two And Two Make Five' Is Not Without Its Attractions.

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.

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

If He's Honest, He'll Steal; If He's Human, He'll Murder; If He's Faithful, He'll Deceive.

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

Russians Alone Are Able To Combine So Many Opposites In Themselves At One And The Same Time.

I Gave Up Caring About Anything, And All The Problems Disappeared. And It Was After That That I Found Out The Truth . I Learnt The Truth Last November On The Third Of November, To Be Precise And I Remember Every Instant Since.

Pain And Suffering Are Always Inevitable For A Large Intelligence And A Deep Heart. The Really Great Men Must, I Think, Have Great Sadness On Earth.

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.

Atheism: It Seeks To Replace In Itself The Moral Power Of Religion, In Order To Appease The Spiritual Thirst Of Parched Humanity And Save It; Not By Christ, But By Force.

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

You Know, My Boy, He Said, It's Impossible To Love Men Such As They Are. And Yet We Must. So Try To Do Good To Men By Doing Violence To Your Feelings, Holding Your Nose, And Shutting Your Eyes, Especially Shutting Your Eyes. Endure Their Villainy Without Anger, As Much As Possible; Try To Remember That You're A Man Too. For, If You're Even A Little Above Average Intelligence, You'll Have The Propensity To Judge People Severely. Men Are Vile By Nature And They'd Rather Love Out Of Fear. Don't Give In To Such Love: Despise It Always.

If There Is No God, Everything Is Permitted.

There Is No God

The More You Succeed In Loving, The More You'll Be Convinced At The Existence Of God And The Immortality Of Your Soul.

A Man Is No Example For A Woman. It’s A Different Thing.

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.

Don’t Let Us Forget That The Causes Of Human Actions Are Usually Immeasurably More Complex And Varied Than Our Subsequent Explanations Of Them.

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 .

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

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.

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

If God Does Not Exist, Then Everything Is Permissible.

There Is Only One Thing That I Dread: Not To Be Worthy Of My Sufferings.

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.

Such Power!" Adelaida Cried All At Once, Peering Greedily At The Portrait Over Her Sister's Shoulder. "where? What Power?" Lizaveta Prokofyevna Asked Sharply. "such Beauty Has Power," Adelaida Said Hotly. "you Can Overturn The World With Such Beauty.

Here My Tears Are Falling, Nastenka. Let Them Flow, Let Them Flow - They Don't Hurt Anybody. They Will Dry Nastenka.

He Walked On Without Resting. He Had A Terrible Longing For Some Distraction, But He Did Not Know What To Do, What To Attempt. A New Overwhelming Sensation Was Gaining More And More Mastery Over Him Every Moment; This Was An Immeasurable, Almost Physical, Repulsion For Everything Surrounding Him, An Obstinate, Malignant Feeling Of Hatred. All Who Met Him Were Loathsome To Him - He Loathed Their Faces, Their Movements, Their Gestures. If Anyone Had Addressed Him, He Felt That He Might Have Spat At Him Or Bitten Him... .

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

I Saw Clear As Daylight How Strange It Is That Not A Single Person Living In This Mad World Has Had The Daring To Go Straight For It All And Send It Flying To The Devil! I...i Wanted To Have The Daring...and I Killed Her.

There Is No Sin , And There Can Be No Sin On All The Earth , Which The Lord Will Not Forgive To The Truly Repentant! Man Cannot Commit A Sin So Great As To Exhaust The Infinite Love Of God . Can There Be A Sin Which Could Exceed The Love Of God?

I Feel Pity For Him, And That Is A Poor Sign Of Love.

For The Secret Of Man's Being Is Not Only To Live But To Have Something To Live For. Without A Stable Conception Of The Object Of Life, Man Would Not Consent To Go On Living, And Would Rather Destroy Himself Than Remain On Earth, Though He Had Bread In Abundance.

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.

Do You Believe In A Future Everlasting Life? No, Not In A Future Everlasting But In An Everlasting Life Here. There Are Moments, You Reach Moments, And Time Comes To A Sudden Stop, And It Will Become Eternal.

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.

Life Is What Matters, Life Alone - The Continuous, Eternal Process Of Discovering Life - And Not The Discovery Itself.

I Bless The Rising Sun Each Day, And, As Before, My Heart Sings To Meet It, But Now I Love Even More Its Setting, Its Long Slanting Rays & The Soft Tender Gentle Memories That Come With Them...’ -father Zossima

Believe To The End, Even If All Men Went Astray And You Were Left The Only One Faithful; Bring Your Offering Even Then And Praise God In Your Loneliness.

One Can't Understand Everything At Once, We Can't Begin With Perfection All At Once! In Order To Reach Perfection One Must Begin By Being Ignorant Of A Great Deal. And If We Understand Things Too Quickly, Perhaps We Shan't Understand Them Thoroughly.

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.

Originality And A Feeling Of One's Own Dignity Are Achieved Only Through Work And Struggle.

And You're Sorry That The Ephemeral Beauty Has Faded So Rapidly, So Irretrievably, That It Flashed So Deceptively And Pointlessly Before Your Eyes - You're Sorry, For You Didn't Even Have Time To Fall In Love.

Falling In Love

The Most Pressing Question On The Problem Of Faith Is Whether A Man As A Civilized Being Can Believe In The Divinity Of The Son Of God, Jesus Christ, For Therein Rests The Whole Of Our Faith.

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!

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

For I Love The Empress Of My Soul. I Love And I Cannot But Love. You Yourself See The Whole Of Me. I Shall Fly To Her, Fall Down Before Her: You Were Right To Walk Past Me.. Farewell And Forget Your Victim, Never Trouble Yourself More!

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

In Abstract Love Of Humanity One Almost Always Only Loves Oneself.

Humanitarianism

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.

To A Commonplace Man Of Limited Intellect, For Instance, Nothing Is Simpler Than To Imagine Himself An Original Character, And To Revel In That Belief Without The Slightest Misgiving.

I Used To Imagine Adventures For Myself, I Invented A Life, So That I Could At Least Exist Somehow.

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

Remember That You Must Never Sell Your Soul. Never Accept Payment In Advance.... Never Give A Work To The Printer Before It Is Finished. This Is The Worst Thing You Can Do.... It Constitutes The Murder Of Your Own Ideas.

It Seemed Clear To Me That Life And The World Somehow Depended Upon Me Now. I May Almost Say That The World Now Seemed Created For Me Alone: If I Shot Myself The World Would Cease To Be At Least For Me. I Say Nothing Of Its Being Likely That Nothing Will Exist For Anyone When I Am Gone, And That As Soon As My Consciousness Is Extinguished The Whole World Will Vanish Too And Become Void Like A Phantom , As A Mere Appurtenance Of My Consciousness, For Possibly All This World And All These People Are Only Me Myself.

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

Meaning Of Life

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

The Absurd Is Only Too Necessary On Earth. The World Stands On Absurdities.

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 You Wish To Glimpse Inside A Human Soul And Get To Know A Man ... Just Watch Him Laugh. If He Laughs Well, He's A Good Man.

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

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