Background Image

...

It Suddenly Seemed To Me That I Was Lonely, That Every One Was Forsaking Me And Going Away From Me. Of Course, Any One Is Entitled To Ask Who "every One" Was. For Though I Had Been Living Almost Eight Years In Petersburg I Had Hardly An Acquaintance. But What Did I Want With Acquaintances? I Was Acquainted With All Petersburg As It Was.

-Fyodor Dostoevsky

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

It Suddenly Seemed To

Fyodor Dostoevsky

...

It Suddenly Seemed To Me That I Was Lonely, That Every One Was Forsaking Me And Going Away From Me. Of Course, Any One Is Entitled To Ask Who "every One" Was. For Though I Had Been Living Almost Eight Years In Petersburg I Had Hardly An Acquaintance. But What Did I Want With Acquaintances? I Was Acquainted With All Petersburg As It Was.

Views: 80311

Topic

More From Fyodor Dostoevsky

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

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.

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

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.

Man Is Bound To Lie About Himself

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.

Man Is Fond Of Counting His Troubles, But He Does Not Count His Joys. If He Counted Them Up As He Ought To, He Would See That Every Lot Has Enough Happiness Provided For It.

It's Curious And Ridiculous How Much The Gaze Of A Prudish And Painfully Chaste Man Touched By Love Can Sometimes Express And That Precisely At A Moment When The Man Would Of Course Sooner Be Glad To Fall Through The Earth Than To Express Anything With A Word Or A Look.

I Will Not And Cannot Believe That Evil Is The Normal Condition Of Mankind.

Granted I Am A Babbler, A Harmless Vexatious Babbler, Like All Of Us. But What Is To Be Done If The Direct And Sole Vocation Of Every Intelligent Man Is Babble, That Is, The Intentional Pouring Of Water Through A Sieve?

The More Conscious I Was Of Goodness And Of All That Was 'sublime And Beautiful,'the More Deeply I Sank Into My Mire And The More Ready I Was To Sink In It Altogether.

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

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.

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

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

If God Does Not Exist, Everything Is Permitted.

Above All, Do Not Lie To Yourself.

Occupy Yourself

Wealth Is The Number Of Things One Can Do Without.

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

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

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

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

Speak Of A Wolf And You See His Tail!

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

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.

My Friend, The Truth Is Always Implausible, Did You Know That? To Make The Truth More Plausible, It's Absolutely Necessary To Mix A Bit Of Falsehood With It. People Have Always Done So.

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.

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

Gambling Is A Most Foolish And Imprudent Pursuit.

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

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

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.

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.

Only Through Suffering Can We Find Ourselves.

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

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 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!

A Society Should Be Judged Not By How It Treats Its Outstanding Citizens But By How It Treats Its Criminals.

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

You Are Told A Lot About Your Education, But Some Beautiful, Sacred Memory, Preserved Since Childhood, Is Perhaps The Best Education Of All.

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!

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.

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

If There Were No God, He Would Have To Be Invented.

Brothers Karamazov

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.

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.

The Soul Is Healed By Being With Children.

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.

At Such Times I Felt Something Was Drawing Me Away, And I Kept Fancying That If I Walked Straight On, Far, Far Away And Reached That Line Where The Sky And Earth Meet, There I Should Find The Key To The Mystery, There I Should See A New Life A Thousand Times Richer And More Turbulent Than Ours.

You Are A Man Still Young, So To Say, In Your First Youth And So Put Intellect Above Everything.

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.

Love Life More Than The Meaning Of It?

Brothers Karamazov

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

Love Is A Teacher, But One Must Know How To Acquire It, For It Is Difficult To Acquire, It Is Dearly Bought, By Long Work Over A Long Time, For One Ought To Love Not For A Chance Moment But For All Time. Anyone, Even A Wicked Man, Can Love By Chance.

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.

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.

Without God All Things Are Permitted.

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

One Can Fall In Love And Still Hate.

Falling In Love

Who Doesn't Desire His Fathers Death?

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

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.

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

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

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

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

Happiness Lies Not In Happiness But Only In The Attempt To Achieve It.

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

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

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

The World Will Be Saved By Beauty.

The Degree Of A Nation’s Civilization Can Be Seen In The Way It Treats Its Prisoners

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.

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

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?

To Think Too Much Is A Disease.

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.

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

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.

A Man Would Still Do Something Out Of Sheer Perversity - He Would Create Destruction And Chaos - Just To Gain His Point...and If All This Could In Turn Be Analyzed And Prevented By Predicting That It Would Occur, Then Man Would Deliberately Go Mad To Prove His Point.

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.

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

Humanitarianism

All Of A Sudden I Became Aware Of A Little Star In One Of Those Patches And I Began Looking At It Intently. That Was Because The Little Star Gave Me An Idea: I Made Up My Mind To Kill Myself That Night. I Had Made Up My Mind To Kill Myself Already Two Months Before And, Poor As I Am, I Bought Myself An Excellent Revolver And Loaded It The Same Day. But Two Months Had Elapsed And It Was Still Lying In The Drawer. I Was So Utterly Indifferent To Everything That I Was Anxious To Wait For The Moment When I Would Not Be So Indifferent And Then Kill Myself. Why -- I Don't Know.

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."

My Life Is Ending, I Know That Well, But Every Day That Is Left Me I Feel How My Earthly Life Is In Touch With A New Infinite, Unknown, But Approaching Life, The Nearness Of Which Sets My Soul Quivering With Rapture, My Mind Glowing And My Heart Weeping With Joy.

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!

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

There Is Not A Thing That Is More Positive Than Bread.

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

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.

Humanity Can Live Without Science, It Can Live Without Bread, But It Cannot Live Without Beauty. Without Beauty, There Would Be Nothing Left To Do In This Life. Here The Secret Lies. Here Lies The Entire Story.

I Can See The Sun, But Even If I Cannot See The Sun, I Know That It Exists. And To Know That The Sun Is There - That Is Living.

Brothers Karamazov

Human Laziness Makes People Pigeonhole One Another At First Site So That They Find Nothing In Common With One Another.

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?

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

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!

The Perpetration Of A Crime Is Accompanied By Illness!

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.

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

If I Seem Happy To You . . . You Could Never Say Anything That Would Please Me More. For Men Are Made For Happiness, And Anyone Who Is Completely Happy Has A Right To Say To Himself, 'i Am Doing God's Will On Earth.' All The Righteous, All The Saints, All The Holy Martyrs Were Happy.

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

Brothers Karamazov

Let Us Be Servants In Order To Be Leaders.

Is It Really Not Possible To Touch The Gaming Table Without Being Instantly Infected By Superstition?

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.

... What You Need More Than Anything In Life Is A Definite Position.

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

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

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.

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

...a Condemned Man Who, At The Hour Of Death, Says Or Thinks That If The Alternative Were Offered Him Of Existing Somewhere, On A Height Of Rock Or Some Narrow Elevation, Where Only His Two Feet Could Stand, And Round About Him The Ocean, Perpetual Gloom, Perpetual Solitude, Perpetual Storm, To Remain There Standing On A Yard Of Surface For A Lifetime, A Thousand Years, Eternity! - Rather Would He Live Thus Than Die At Once? Only Live, Live, Live! - No Matter How, Only Live!

Suffering Is The Sole Origin Of Consciousness.

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.

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.

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.

Can A Man Of Perception Respect Himself At All?

Don’t Be Overwise; Fling Yourself Straight Into Life, Without Deliberation; Don’t Be Afraid - The Flood Will Bear You To The Bank And Set You Safe On Your Feet Again.

You Can Be Sincere And Still Be Stupid.

Never Mind A Little Dirt, If The Goal Is Splendid!

Reason Is The Slave Of Passion.

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

We Have All Lost Touch With Life, We All Limp, Each To A Greater Or Lesser Degree.

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

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.

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.

Trifles, Trifles Are What Matter!

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

We Must Never Forget That Human Motives Are Generally Far More Complicated Than We Are Apt To Suppose, And That We Can Very Rarely Accurately Describe The Motives Of Another.

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

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.

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?

When Reason Fails, The Devil Helps!

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.

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.

Everywhere I Am The Object Of An Unbelievable Esteem, The Interest In Me Is, Quite Simply, Tremendous.

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?

It Suddenly Seemed To Me That I Was Lonely, That Every One Was Forsaking Me And Going Away From Me. Of Course, Any One Is Entitled To Ask Who "every One" Was. For Though I Had Been Living Almost Eight Years In Petersburg I Had Hardly An Acquaintance. But What Did I Want With Acquaintances? I Was Acquainted With All Petersburg As It Was.

A Just Cause Is Not Ruined By A Few Mistakes.

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

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.

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

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?

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

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

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

What Is Hell?...the Suffering That Comes From The Consciousness That One Is No Longer Able To Love.

I Cannot Understand Why The World Is Arranged As It Is.

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.

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.

Realists Do Not Fear The Results Of Their Study.

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.

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.

Gentlemen, Let Us Suppose That Man Is Not Stupid. (indeed One Cannot Refuse To Suppose That, If Only From The One Consideration, That, If Man Is Stupid, Then Who Is Wise?) But If He Is Not Stupid, He Is Monstrously Ungrateful! Phenomenally Ungrateful. In Fact, I Believe That The Best Definition Of Man Is The Ungrateful Biped.

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

The Greatest Happiness Is To Know The Source Of Unhappiness.

But Man Is A Fickle And Disreputable Creature And Perhaps, Like A Chess-player, Is Interested In The Process Of Attaining His Goal Rather Than The Goal Itself.

For Men Are Made For Happiness, And Any One Who Is Completely Happy Has A Right To Say To Himself, 'i Am Doing God's Will On Earth.'

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

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

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

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

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

But Men Love Abstract Reasoning And Neat Systematization So Much That They Think Nothing Of Distorting The Truth, Closing Their Eyes And Ears To Contrary Evidence To Preserve Their Logical Constructions.

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.

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.

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

Let Us Not Forget That The Reasons For Human Actions Are Usually Incalculably More Complex And Diverse Than We Tend To Explain Them Later, And Are Seldom Clearly Manifest.

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.

How Does It Come About That What An Intelligent Man Expresses Is Much Stupider Than What Remains Inside Him?

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

We Are All Happy If We But Knew It.

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

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?

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

A Loss For Words

Times Of Crisis, Of Disruption Or Constructive Change, Are Not Only Predictable, But Desirable. They Mean Growth. Taking A New Step, Uttering A New Word, Is What People Fear Most.

One Could Never Judge A Man Without Seeing Him Close, For Oneself.

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

Brothers Karamazov

What Terrible Tragedies Realism Inflicts On People.

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

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.

It's Not Miracles That Generate Faith, But Faith That Generates Miracles.

.. 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

A Cultivated And Decent Man Cannot Be Vain Without Setting A Fearfully High Standard For Himself, And Without Despising And Almost Hating Himself At Certain Moments.

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.

No, I Can't Admit It. Brother,' Said Alyosha Suddenly, With Flashing Eyes, 'you Said Just Now, Is There A Being In The Whole World Who Would Have The Right To Forgive And Could Firgive? But There Is A Being And He Can Forgive Everything, All And For All, Because He Gave His Innocent Blood For All And Everything. You Have Forgotten Him, And On Him Is Built The Edifice, And It Is To Him They Cry Aloud, "thou Art Just, O Lord, For Thy Ways Are Revealed!

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.

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.

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.

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

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

Trending Author

Sholom Aleichem

Category