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If You Want To Be Respected By Others, The Great Thing Is To Respect Yourself. Only By That, Only By Self-respect Will You Compel Others To Respect You.

-Fyodor Dostoevsky

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If You Want To

Fyodor Dostoevsky

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If You Want To Be Respected By Others, The Great Thing Is To Respect Yourself. Only By That, Only By Self-respect Will You Compel Others To Respect You.

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Imagine That You Are Creating A Fabric Of Human Destiny With The Object Of Making Men Happy In The End, Giving Them Peace And Rest At Last. Imagine That You Are Doing This But That It Is Essential And Inevitable To Torture To Death Only One Tiny Creature...in Order To Found That Edifice On Its Unavenged Tears. Would You Consent To Be The Architect On Those Conditions? Tell Me. Tell The Truth.

There Is Nothing Higher And Stronger And More Wholesome And Useful For Life In Later Years Than Some Good Memory, Especially A Memory Connected With Childhood, With Home.

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.

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Destroy My Desires, Eradicate My Ideals, Show Me Something Better, And I Will Follow You.

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With Love One Can Live Even Without Happiness.

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.

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

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.

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.

Father Monks, Why Do You Fast! Why Do You Expect Reward In Heaven For That?...no, Saintly Monk, You Try Being Virtuous In The World, Do Good To Society, Without Shutting Yourself Up In A Monastery At Other People's Expense, And Without Expecting A Reward Up Aloft For It--you'll Find That A Bit Harder.

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.

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

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

. . . Finally, I Couldn't Imagine How I Could Live Without Books, And I Stopped Dreaming About Marrying That Chinese Prince. . . .

Everything Passes, Only Truth Remains.

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!

Above All, Avoid Lies, All Lies, Especially The Lie To Yourself. Keep Watch On Your Own Lie And Examine It Every Hour, Every Minute. And Avoid Contempt, Both Of Others And Of Yourself: What Seems Bad To You In Yourself Is Purified By The Very Fact That You Have Noticed It In Yourself. And Avoid Fear, Though Fear Is Simply The Consequence Of Every Lie. Never Be Frightened At Your Own Faintheartedness In Attaining Love, And Meanwhile Do Not Even Be Very Frightened By Your Own Bad Acts.

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

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.

Catch Several Hares And You Won't Catch One.

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

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

Existence Alone Had Never Been Enough For Him; He Had Always Wanted More. Perhaps It Was Only From The Force Of His Desires That He Had Regarded Himself As A Man To Whom More Was Permitted Than To Others.

What Can Become Of Him If He Is In Such Bondage To The Habit Of Satisfying The Innumerable Desires He Has Created For Himself? He Is Isolated, And What Concern Has He With The Rest Of Humanity? They Have Succeeded In Accumulating A Greater Mass Of Objects, But The Joy In The World Has Grown Less.

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.

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

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

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

It’s Not God That I Don’t Accept, Alyosha, Only I Most Respectfully Return Him The Ticket.

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

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.

I Have A Plan-to Go Mad.

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.

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.

He Did Not Know That The New Life Would Not Be Given Him For Nothing, That He Would Have To Pay Dearly For It, That It Would Cost Him Great Striving, Great Suffering. But That Is The Beginning Of A New Story -- The Story Of The Gradual Renewal Of A Man, The Story Of His Gradual Regeneration, Of His Passing From One World Into Another, Of His Initiation Into A New Unknown Life. That Might Be The Subject Of A New Story, But Our Present Story Is Ended.

The Fear Of Appearances Is The First Symptom Of Impotence.

There Is Immeasurably More Left Inside Than What Comes Out In Words. Your Thought, Even A Bad One, While It Is With You, Is Always More Profound, But In Words It Is More Ridiculous And Dishonorable.

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

And Now I Am Eking Out My Days In My Corner, Taunting Myself With The Bitter And Entirely Useless Consolations That An Intelligent Man Cannot Seriously Become Anything; That Only A Fool Can Become Something. Yes, Sir, An Intelligent Nineteenth-century Man Must Be, Is Morally Bound To Be, An Essentially Characterless Creature; And A Man Of Character, A Man Of Action - An Essentially Limited Creature. This Is My Conviction At The Age Of Forty. I Am Forty Now, And Forty Years - Why, It Is All Of A Lifetime, It Is The Deepest Of Old Age. Living Past Forty Is Indecent, Vulgar, Immoral!

A Just Cause Is Not Ruined By A Few Mistakes.

It Takes Something More Than Intelligence To Act Intelligently.

Crime And Punishment

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.

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

Man Is Bound To Lie About Himself

My Friends, Ask Gladness From God. Be Glad As Children, As Birds In The Sky. And Let Man's Sin Not Disturb You In Your Efforts, Do Not Feat That It Will Dampen Your Endeavor And Keep It From Being Fulfilled, Do Not Say, Sin Is Strong, Impiety Is Strong, The Bad Environment Is Strong, And We Are Lonely And Powerless, The Bad Environment Will Dampen Us And Keep Our Good Endeavor From Being Fulfilled. Flee From Such Despondency, My Children! There Is Only One Salvation For You: Take Yourself Up, And Make Yourself Responsible For The Sins Of Men.

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

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.

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.

If God Does Not Exist, Everything Is Permitted.

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

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Break What Must Be Broken, Once For All, That's All, And Take The Suffering On Oneself.

Trifles, Trifles Are What Matter!

Know That I've Forgotten Precisely Nothing; But I've Driven It All Out Of My Head For A Time, Even The Memories--until I've Radically Improved My Circumstances. Then...then You'll See, I'll Rise From The Dead!

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

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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.

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If There Is No God, Then I Am God.

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To Think Too Much Is A Disease.

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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?

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.

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 Believe There Is No One Deeper, Lovelier, More Sympathetic And More Perfect Than Jesus.

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

I Did Not Bow Down To You, I Bowed Down To All The Suffering Of Humanity.

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, Indeed, Nothing More Annoying Than To Be, For Instance, Wealthy, Of Good Family, Nice-looking, Fairly Intelligent, And Even Good-natured, And Yet To Have No Talents, No Special Faculty, No Peculiarity Even, Not One Idea Of One's Own, To Be Precisely "like Other People.

Without God All Things Are Permitted.

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.

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.

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

Gambling Is A Most Foolish And Imprudent Pursuit.

He Does Not Like Showing His Feelings And Would Rather Do A Cruel Thing Than Open His Heart Freely.

If The People Around You Are Spiteful And Callous And Will Not Hear You, Fall Down Before Them And Beg Their Forgiveness; For In Truth You Are To Blame For Their Not Wanting To Hear You.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

Compassion Is The Chief Law Of Human Existence.

Above All, Avoid Falsehood, Every Kind Of Falsehood, Especially Falseness To Yourself. Watch Over Your Own Deceitfulness And Look Into It Every Hour, Every Minute.

The More Incompetent One Feels, The More Eager He Is To Fight.

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.

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

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.

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

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

Only To Live, To Live And Live! Life, Whatever It May Be!

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

What If Man Is Not Really A Scoundrel, Man In General, I Mean, The Whole Race Of Mankind-then All The Rest Is Prejudice, Simply Artificial Terrors And There Are No Barriers And It's All As It Should Be.

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

New Relationship

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.

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.

I Am A Sick Man...i Am A Spiteful Man. I Am A Most Unpleasant Man.

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

As For Me, This Is My Story: I Worked And Was Tortured. You Know What It Means To Compose? No, Thank God, You Do Not! I Believe You Have Never Written To Order, By The Yard, And Have Never Experienced That Hellish Torture.

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.

A Beast Can Never Be As Cruel As A Human Being, So Artistically, So Picturesquely Cruel.

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

Russian Literature

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.

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

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.

Homeopathic Doses Are Perhaps The Strongest.

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.

As Soon As Any One Is Near Me, His Personality Disturbs My Self-complacency And Restricts My Freedom. In Twenty-four Hours I Begin To Hate The Best Of Men: One Because He's Too Long Over His Dinner; Another Because He Has A Cold And Keeps On Blowing His Nose. I Become Hostile To People The Moment They Come Close To Me. But It Has Always Happened That The More I Detest Men Individually The More Ardent Becomes My Love For Humanity.

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

My Feelings, Gratitude, For Instance, Are Denied Me Simply Because Of My Social Position.

At First It Was Simply Liking, Nastenka, But Now, Now ! I Am Just In The Same Position As You Were When You Went To Him With Your Bundle. In A Worse Position Than You, Nastenka,because He Cared For No One Else As You Do.

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.

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

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.

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

I Did Not Understand That She Was Hiding Her Feelings Under Irony, That This Is Usually The Last Refuge Of Modest And Chaste-souled People When The Privacy Of Their Soul Is Coarsely And Intrusively Invaded, And That Their Pride Makes Them Refuse To Surrender Till The Last Moment And Shrink From Giving Expression To Their Feelings Before You. To Have Guessed The Truth From The Timidity With Which She Had Repeatedly Approached Her Sarcasm, Only Bringing Herself To Utter It At Last With An Effort.

I Am A Wicked Man... But Do You Know, Gentlemen, What Was The Main Point About My Wickedness? The Whole Thing, Precisely Was, The Greatest Nastiness Precisely Lay In My Being Shamefully Conscious Every Moment, Even In Moments Of The Greatest Bile, That I Was Not Only Not A Wicked Man But Was Not Even An Embittered Man, That I Was Simply Frightening Sparrows In Vain, And Pleasing Myself With It.

Remember, Too, Every Day, And Whenever You Can, Repeat To Yourself, Lord, Have Mercy On All Who Appear Before Thee Today. For Every Hour And Every Moment Thousands Of Men Leave Life On This Earth, And Their Souls Appear Before God. And How Many Of Them Depart In Solitude, Unknown, Sad, Dejected That No One Mourns For Them Or Even Knows Whether They Have Lived Or Not!

My God, But What Do I Care About The Laws Of Nature And Arithmatic If For Some Reason These Laws And Two Times Two Is Four Are Not To My Liking?

I Gave Up Caring About Anything, And All The Problems Disappeared.

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!

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.

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.

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!

It Is Easier For A Russian To Become An Atheist Than For Anyone Else In The World.

To Be Too Conscious Is An Illness. A Real Thorough Going Illness.

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

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

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

What Does Reason Know? Reason Only Knows What It Has Succeeded In Learning.

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.

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

The Consciousness Of Life Is Higher Than Life.

If She Had Ordered Me To Throw Myself Down Then, I Would Have Done It! If She Had Said It Only As A Joke, Said It With Contempt, Spitting On Me--even Then I Would Have Jumped!

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

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?

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

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.

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

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.

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

Every Man Has Some Reminiscences Which He Would Not Tell To Everyone, But Only To His Friends. He Has Others Which He Would Not Reveal Even To His Friends, But Only To Himself, And That In Secret. But Finally There Are Still Others Which A Man Is Even Afraid To Tell Himself, And Every Decent Man Has A Considerable Number Of Such Things Stored Away. That Is, One Can Even Say That The More Decent He Is, The Greater The Number Of Such Things In His Mind.

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

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

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.

It Was A Marvelous Night, The Sort Of Night One Only Experiences When One Is Young. The Sky Was So Bright, And There Were So Many Stars That, Gazing Upward, One Couldn't Help Wondering How So Many Whimsical, Wicked People Could Live Under Such A Sky.

Realists Do Not Fear The Results Of Their Study.

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

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

Can A Man Of Perception Respect Himself At All?

If Everything On Earth Were Rational, Nothing Would Happen.

Power Is Given Only To Him Who Dares To Stoop And Take It ... One Must Have The Courage To Dare.

Only The Heart Knows How To Find What Is Precious.

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.

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.

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."

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.

A True Friend Of Mankind Whose Heart Has But Once Quivered In Compassion Over The Sufferings Of The People, Will Understand And Forgive All The Impassable Alluvial Filth In Which They Are Submerged, And Will Be Able To Discover The Diamonds In The Filth.

There Is Immeasurably More Left Inside Than What Comes Out In Words.

A Loss For Words

God Is The Pain Of The Fear Of Death

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.

To Be Acutely Conscious Is A Disease, A Real, Honest-to-goodness Disease.

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.

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.

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

A New Philosophy, A New Way Of Life, Is Not Given For Nothing. It Has To Be Paid Dearly For And Only Acquired With Much Patience And Great Effort

They Tease Me Now, Telling Me It Was Only A Dream. But Does It Matter Whether It Was A Dream Or Reality, If The Dream Made Known To Me The Truth?

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.

Only Through Suffering Can We Find Ourselves.

Obedience, Fasting, And Prayer Are Laughed At, Yet Only Through Them Lies The Way To Real True Freedom. I Cut Off My Superfluous And Unnecessary Desires, I Subdue My Proud And Wanton Will And Chastise It With Obedience, And With God's Help I Attain Freedom Of Spirit And With It Spiritual Joy.

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.

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.

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

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.

Suffering Is The Sole Origin Of Consciousness.

Can A Man Possessing Conciousness Ever Really Respect Himself?

... 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

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.

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.

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.

The Essence Of Religious Feeling Does Not Come Under Any Sort Of Reasoning Or Atheism, And Has Nothing To Do With Any Crimes Or Misdemeanors. There Is Something Else Here, And There Will Always Be Something Else - Something That The Atheists Will For Ever Slur Over; They Will Always Be Talking Of Something Else.

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.

This Pleasure Comes Precisely From The Sharpest Awareness Of Your Own Degradation; From The Knowledge That You Have Gone To The Utmost Limit; That It Is Despicable, Yet Cannot Be Otherwise; That You No Longer Have Any Way Out; That You Will Never Become A Different Man.

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.

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.

Every Decent Man Of Our Age Must Be A Coward And A Slave. That Is His Normal Condition. Of That I Am Firmly Persuaded. He Is Made And Constructed To That Very End. And Not Only At The Present Time Owing To Some Casual Circumstance, But Always, At All Times, A Decent Man Is Bound To Be A Coward And A Slave.

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

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.

Love Life More Than The Meaning Of It?

Brothers Karamazov

And, Indeed, I Will At This Point Ask An Idle Question On My Own Account: Which Is Better — Cheap Happiness Or Exalted Sufferings? Well, Which Is Better?

Pass Us By, And Forgive Us Our Happiness

It Wasn't The New World That Mattered... Columbus Died Almost Without Seeing It; And Not Really Knowing What He Had Discovered. It's Life That Matters, Nothing But Life - The Process Of Discovering, The Everlasting And Perpetual Process, Not The Discovery Itself, At All.

It Is Man's Unique Privilege, Among All Other Organisms. By Pursuing Falsehood You Will Arrive At The Truth!

Though I Do Not Believe In The Order Of Things, Still The Sticky Little Leaves That Come Out In The Spring Are Dear To Me, The Blue Sky Is Dear To Me, Some People Are Dear To Me, Whom One Loves Sometimes, Would You Believe It, Without Even Knowing Why; Some Human Deeds Are Dear To Me, Which One Has Perhaps Long Ceased Believing In, But Still Honors With One's Heart, Out Of Old Habit..." --ivan Karamazov

In Every Idea Of Genius Or In Every New Human Idea, Or, More Simply Still, In Every Serious Human Idea Born In Anyone's Brain, There Is Something That Cannot Possibly Be Conveyed To Others.

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