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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.

-Fyodor Dostoevsky

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Listen, In Dreams And

Fyodor Dostoevsky

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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.

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

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.

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

Your Hand Is Cold, Mine Burns Like Fire. How Blind You Are, Nastenka!

On Our Earth We Can Only Love Withsuffering And Through Suffering.

Love Animals: God Has Given Them The Rudiments Of Thought And Joy Untroubled. Do Not Trouble Their Joy, Don't Harrass Them, Don't Deprive Them Of Their Happiness, Don't Work Against God's Intent. Man, Do Not Pride Yourself On Superiority To Animals; They Are Without Sin, And You, With Your Greatness, Defile The Earth By Your Appearance On It, And Leave The Traces Of Your Foulness After You - Alas, It Is True Of Almost Every One Of Us!

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.

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!

The Death Of A Child Is The Greatest Reason To Doubt The Existence Of God.

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

But People Will Laugh At All Sorts Of Things.

You Cannot Imagine What Sorrow And Anger Seize One's Whole Soul When A Great Idea, Which One Has Long And Piously Revered, Is Picked Up By Some Bunglers And Dragged Into The Street, To More Fools Like Themselves, And One Suddenly Meets It In The Flea Market, Unrecognizable, Dirty, Askew, Absurdly Presented, Without Proportion, Without Harmony, A Toy For Stupid Children.

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

In Order To Love Simply, It Is Necessary To Know How To Show Love.

It's The Great Mystery Of Human Life That Old Grief Passes Gradually Into Quiet Tender Joy.

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

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

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

New Relationship

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.

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.

If God Does Not Exist, Then Everything Is Permissible.

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.

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

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

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!

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.

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.

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.

The World Says: "you Have Needs - Satisfy Them. You Have As Much Right As The Rich And The Mighty. Don't Hesitate To Satisfy Your Needs; Indeed, Expand Your Needs And Demand More." This Is The Worldly Doctrine Of Today. And They Believe That This Is Freedom. The Result For The Rich Is Isolation And Suicide, For The Poor, Envy And Murder.

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

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...

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

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

Everything Passes, Only Truth Remains.

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

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.

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

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.

But Try Getting Blindly Carried Away By Your Feelings, Without Reasoning, Without A Primary Cause, Driving Consciousness Away At Least For A Time; Start Hating, Or Fall In Love, Only So As Not To Sit With Folded Arms.

Falling In Love

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

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.'

Pass Us By, And Forgive Us Our Happiness

I Am A Sick Man...i Am A Spiteful Man. I Am An Unattractive Man. I Think My Liver Is Diseased. Then Again, I Don't Know A Thing About My Illness; I'm Not Even Sure What Hurts.

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

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

I Wanted To Fathom Her Secrets; I Wanted Her To Come To Me And Say: "i Love You," And If Not That, If That Was Senseless Insanity, Then...well, What Was There To Care About? Did I Know What I Wanted? I Was Like One Demented: All I Wanted Was To Be Near Her, In The Halo Of Her Glory, In Her Radiance, Always, For Ever, All My Life. I Knew Nothing More!

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

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

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.

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

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

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

Whether One Showed You And Execution Or A Little Finger, You Would Extract An Equally Edifying Thought From Both Of Them, And Would Still Be Content. That's The Way To Get On In Life.

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

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

Continuation Of Life

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.

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.

Neither Man Nor Nation Can Exist Without A Sublime Idea.

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

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 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.

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

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

We Are All Happy If We But Knew It.

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

Gentlemen, I Am Tormented By Questions; Answer Them For Me.

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.

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.

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

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

Hell Is The Inability To Love.

Inability To Love

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.

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.

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

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!

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

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.

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

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

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

Right Or Wrong, It's Very Pleasant To Break Something From Time To Time.

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

Life Is In Ourselves And Not In The External.

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.

‎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.

I Am Crazy About Mysterious Things.

Mysterious Things

Suppose, Gentleman, That Man Is Not Stupid.

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

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

You’re A Gentleman,” They Used To Say To Him. “you Shouldn’t Have Gone Murdering People With A Hatchet; That’s No Occupation For A Gentleman.

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

Finding Yourself

If There Is No God, Everything Is Permitted.

There Is No God

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?

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

Only The Heart Knows How To Find What Is Precious.

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

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.

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

I Believe The Best Definition Of Man Is The Ungrateful Biped.

It's The Moon That Makes It So Still, Weaving Some Mystery.

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

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.

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.

Fathers, Provoke Not Your Children To Wrath.

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

Viper Will Eat Viper, And It Would Serve Them Both Right!

Brothers Karamazov

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.

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

Making Mistakes

The Prince Says That The World Will Be Saved By Beauty! And I Maintain That The Reason He Has Such Playful Ideas Is That He Is In Love.

If They Drive God From The Earth, We Shall Shelter Him Underground.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

But It Is Possible, It Is Possible: The Old Grief, By A Great Mystery Of Human Life, Gradually Passes Into Quiet, Tender Joy; Instead Of Young, Ebullient Blood Comes A Mild, Serene Old Age: I Bless The Sun's Rising Each Day And My Heart Sings To It As Before, But Now I Love Its Setting Even More, Its Long Slanting Rays, And With Them Quiet, Mild, Tender Memories, Dear Images From The Whole Of A Long And Blessed Life--and Over All Is God's Truth, Moving, Reconciling, All-forgiving!

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!

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

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

Reason Is The Slave Of Passion.

A Hundred Suspicions Don't Make A Proof.

It Is Easier For A Russian To Become An Atheist, Than For Any Other Nationality In The World. And Not Only Does A Russian 'become An Atheist,' But He Actually Believes In Atheism, Just As Though He Had Found A New Faith, Not Perceiving That He Has Pinned His Faith To A Negation. Such Is Our Anguish Of Thirst!

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

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.

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

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

I Want To Suffer And Be Purified By Suffering!

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.

Two Times Two Will Be Four Even Without My Will. Is That What You Call Man's Free Will?

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.

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.

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.

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

Sometimes We Desire Absolute Nonsense Because In Our Stupidity We See In This Nonsense The Easiest Way Of Attaining Some Conjectural Good.

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.

Above All, Do Not Lie To Yourself.

Occupy Yourself

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

Man, Do Not Pride Yourself On Your Superiority To The Animals, For They Are Without Sin, While You, With All Your Greatness, You Defile The Earth Wherever You Appear And Leave An Ignoble Trail Behind You -- And That Is True, Alas, For Almost Every One Of Us!

It Is Not The Real Punishment. The Only Effectual One, The Only Deterrent And Softening One, Lies In The Recognition Of Sin By Conscience.

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

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.

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 Terrible Tragedies Realism Inflicts On People.

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

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

A Loss For Words

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

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

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

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

The Perpetration Of A Crime Is Accompanied By Illness!

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

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

I Have Seen The Truth. It Is Not As Though I Had Invented It In My Mind. I Have Seen It, Seen It And The Living Image Of It Has Filled My Soul Forever.

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

Russian Literature

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!

Taking A New Step. . .is What People Fear Most.

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

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

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

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

.. 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

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

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?

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.

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 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.

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

... 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.

Realists Do Not Fear The Results Of Their Study.

The Cleverest Of All, In My Opinion, Is The Man Who Calls Himself A Fool At Least Once A Month.

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.

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.

Nothing Is Easier Than To Denounce The Evildoer; Nothing Is More Difficult Than To Understand Him.

There Is No Idea, No Fact, Which Could Not Be Vulgarized And Presented In A Ludicrous Light.

I've Always Considered Myself Smarter Than Everyone Around Me, And Sometimes, Believe Me, I've Been Ashamed Of It. At The Least, All My Life I've Looked Away And Never Could Look People Straight In The Eye.

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

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

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

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

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.

Life [had] Replaced Logic.

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

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

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!

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

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

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.

Whoever Has Experienced The Power And The Unrestrained Ability To Humiliate Another Human Being Automatically Loses His Own Sensations. Tyranny Is A Habit, It Has Its Own Organic Life, It Develops Finally Into A Disease. The Habit Can Kill And Coarsen The Very Best Man Or Woman To The Level Of A Beast. Blood And Power Intoxicate ... The Return Of The Human Dignity, Repentance And Regeneration Becomes Almost Impossible.

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.

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.

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

... 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

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

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