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

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

Understanding the Quote: "one must be a great man indeed to be able to hold..."

This quote by Fyodor Dostoevsky reflects deeply on the theme of men. It connects to the universal human journey of purpose, motivation, and reflection. Often categorized under Men, Common Sense, Able, the quote offers insight, emotional clarity, and intellectual inspiration to readers worldwide.

Whether you’re a student exploring new ideas, a leader trying to motivate your team, or someone seeking direction in life — this quote provides value. It resonates because it’s more than words — it’s a bridge between experience and wisdom. It shows how Fyodor Dostoevsky interprets life's core challenges and triumphs.

Lessons From the Quote

This quote teaches resilience and focus. It reminds readers that no matter where they stand in life, reflection and self-awareness lead to growth. Each word has meaning, and when studied, it becomes clear how impactful thoughtful language can be.

About Fyodor Dostoevsky

Fyodor Dostoevsky is celebrated for insightful thoughts on men and common sense. Their legacy lives on through writings that guide, comfort, and inspire. Discover more on their profile page.

Actionable Takeaways

  • Reflect on how this quote applies to your current life path.
  • Share the message with someone who needs inspiration.
  • Write your thoughts on this quote in a journal or blog post.
  • Use it as a daily affirmation or reminder.

Closing Thoughts

Quotes like this endure because they capture universal truths. They comfort us in solitude and empower us in groups. Carry this quote forward — live by its wisdom, share its message, and keep its essence alive.

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Topic
Men
Common Sense
Able
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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.
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But Gamblers Know How A Man Can Sit For Almost Twenty-four Hours At Cards, Without Looking To Right, Or To Left.
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For Example, I'm Terribly Proud. I'm As Mistrustful And As Sensitive As A Hunchback Or A Dwarf; But, In Truth, I've Experienced Some Moments When If Someone Had Slapped My Face, I Might Even Have Been Grateful For It. I'm Being Serious. I Probably Would Have Been Able To Derive A Peculiar Sort Of Pleasure From It-the Pleasure Of Despair, Naturally, But The Most Intense Pleasures Occur In Despair, Especially When You're Very Acutely Aware Of The Hopelessness Of Your Own Predicament.
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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.
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Happiness Lies Not In Happiness But Only In The Attempt To Achieve It.
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I Agree That Two And Two Make Four Is An Excellent Thing; But To Give Everything Its Due, Two And Two Make Five Is Also A Very Fine Thing.
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Therefore, In My Incontrovertible Capacity As Plaintiff And Defendant Judge And Accused, I Condemn This Nature, Which Has So Brazenly And Unceremoniously Inflicted This Suffering... Since I Am Unable To Destroy Nature, I Am Destroying Myself, Solely Out Of Weariness Of Having To Endure A Tyranny In Which There Is No Guilty Party.
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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.
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He Walked On Without Resting. He Had A Terrible Longing For Some Distraction, But He Did Not Know What To Do, What To Attempt. A New Overwhelming Sensation Was Gaining More And More Mastery Over Him Every Moment; This Was An Immeasurable, Almost Physical, Repulsion For Everything Surrounding Him, An Obstinate, Malignant Feeling Of Hatred. All Who Met Him Were Loathsome To Him - He Loathed Their Faces, Their Movements, Their Gestures. If Anyone Had Addressed Him, He Felt That He Might Have Spat At Him Or Bitten Him... .
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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.
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Nothing Is More Seductive For A Man Than His Freedom Of Conscience, But Nothing Is A Greater Cause Of Suffering.
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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.
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You Can't Be Angry With Me, Because I Am A Hundred Times More Severely Punished Than You, If Only By The Fact That I Shall Never See You Again.
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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.
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For If There's No Everlasting God, There's No Such Thing As Virtue, And There's No Need Of It.
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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."
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A Society Should Be Judged Not By How It Treats Its Outstanding Citizens But By How It Treats Its Criminals.
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Every Man Looks Out For Himself, And He Has The Happiest Life Who Manages To Hoodwink Himself Best Of All.
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What Matters," Said The Prince At Last, "is That You Have A Child's Trusting Nature And Extraordinary Truthfulness. Do You Know That A Great Deal Can Be Forgiven You For That Alone?
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The World Will Be Saved By Beauty.
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Deprived Of Meaningful Work, Men And Women Lose Their Reason For Existence; They Go Stark, Raving Mad.
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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.
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I Do Not Rebel Against My God, I Simply Do Not Accept His World.
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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
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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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Don’t Let Us Forget That The Causes Of Human Actions Are Usually Immeasurably More Complex And Varied Than Our Subsequent Explanations Of Them.
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If You Want To Overcome The Whole World, Overcome Yourself.
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I Have A Plan-to Go Mad.
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I Gave Up Caring About Anything, And All The Problems Disappeared. And It Was After That That I Found Out The Truth . I Learnt The Truth Last November On The Third Of November, To Be Precise And I Remember Every Instant Since.
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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.
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You Don't Need Free Will To Determine That Twice Two Is Four. That's Not What I Call Free Will
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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.
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It Is Easier For A Russian To Become An Atheist Than For Anyone Else In The World.
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A Hundred Suspicions Don't Make A Proof.
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Viper Will Eat Viper, And It Would Serve Them Both Right!
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Drowning Men, It Is Said, Cling To Wisps Of Straw.
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My Soul Bleeds And The Blood Steadily, Silently, Disturbingly Slowly, Swallows Me Whole.
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When . . . In The Course Of All These Thousands Of Years Has Man Ever Acted In Accordance With His Own Interests?
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It Is Not Possible To Eat Me Without Insisting That I Sing Praises Of My Devourer?
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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.
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After All, I Quite Naturally Want To Live In Order To Fulfill My Whole Capacity For Living, And Not In Order To Fulfill My Reasoning Capacity Alone, Which Is No More Than Some One-twentieth Of My Capacity For Living. What Does Reason Know? It Knows Only What It Has Managed To Learn (and It May Never Learn Anything Else; That Isn't Very Reassuring, But Why Not Admit It?), While Human Nature Acts As A Complete Entity, With All That Is In It, Consciously Or Unconsciously; And Though It May Be Wrong, It's Nevertheless Alive.
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They Were Renewed By Love; The Heart Of Each Held Infinite Sources Of Life For The Heart Of The Other.
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.. 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
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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.
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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.
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And Do You Know, Do You Know That Mankind Can Live Without The Englishman, It Can Live Without Germany, It Can Live Only Too Well Without The Russian Man, It Can Live Without Science, Without Bread, And It Only Cannot Live Without Beauty, For Then There Would Be Nothing At All To Do In The World! The Whole Secret Is Here, The Whole Of History Is Here. Science Itself Would Not Stand For A Minute Without Beauty
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Only One Thing Matters, One Thing; To Be Able To Dare!
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The Death Of A Child Is The Greatest Reason To Doubt The Existence Of God.
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To Live Without Hope Is To Cease To Live.
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Who Doesn't Desire His Fathers Death?
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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.
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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.
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I Think The Devil Doesn't Exist, But Man Has Created Him, He Has Created Him In His Own Image And Likeness.
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‎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.
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Russians Alone Are Able To Combine So Many Opposites In Themselves At One And The Same Time.
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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.
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Gone
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Yoga
Reality
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.
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One Can Know A Man From His Laugh, And If You Like A Man's Laugh Before You Know Anything Of Him, You May Confidently Say That He Is A Good Man.
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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!
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Sunset
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Although Your Mind Works, Your Heart Is Darkened With Depravity; And Without A Pure Heart There Can Be No Complete And True Consciousness
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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.
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A Fool With A Heart And No Sense Is Just As Unhappy As A Fool With Sense And No Heart.
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If You Are Penitent, You Love. And If You Love You Are Of God. All Things Are Atoned For, All Things Are Saved By Love. If I, A Sinner Even As You Are, Am Tender With You And Have Pity On You, How Much More Will God Have Pity Upon You. Love Is Such A Priceless Treasure That You Can Redeem The Whole World By It, And Cleanse Not Only Your Own Sins But The Sins Of Others.
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So Long As Man Remains Free He Strives For Nothing So Incessantly And So Painfully As To Find Someone To Worship.
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You Must Accept It As It Is, And Hence Accept All Consequences. A Wall Is Indeed A Wall.
Wall
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Consequence
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Talent
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Hurt
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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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- What Is A Socialist? - That's When All Are Equal And All Have Property In Common, There Are No Marriages, And Everyone Has Any Religion And Laws He Likes Best. You Are Not Old Enough To Understand That Yet.
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To Love Another Person Is To See Them As God Intended Them To Be.
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...it All, Maybe, Most Likely, Indeed, Might Turn Out For The Best.
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Life Had Stepped Into The Place Of Theory.
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Yes, That's Right... Love Should Come Before Logic ... Only Then Will Man Come To Understand The Meaning Of Life.
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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.
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Thinking
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.
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What Is Hell?...the Suffering That Comes From The Consciousness That One Is No Longer Able To Love.
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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.
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What Do You Think, Would Not One Tiny Crime Be Wiped Out By Thousands Of Good Deeds?
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It’s Not God That I Don’t Accept, Alyosha, Only I Most Respectfully Return Him The Ticket.
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It Is Man's Unique Privilege, Among All Other Organisms. By Pursuing Falsehood You Will Arrive At The Truth!
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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!
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Children
Men
And The More I Drink The More I Feel It. That's Why I Drink Too. I Try To Find Sympathy And Feeling In Drink.... I Drink So That I May Suffer Twice As Much!
Feelings
Suffering
Trying
Two Times Two Will Be Four Even Without My Will. Is That What You Call Man's Free Will?
Men
Two
Four
Above All, Don't Lie To Yourself.
Respect
Lying
Occupy Yourself
But To Fall In Love Does Not Mean To Love. One Can Fall In Love And Still Hate.
Falling In Love
Hate
Mean
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.
Stars
Night
Sky
It Is Not The Real Punishment. The Only Effectual One, The Only Deterrent And Softening One, Lies In The Recognition Of Sin By Conscience.
Lying
Real
Punishment
It's In The Homes Of Spiteful Old Widows That One Finds Such Cleanliness.
Home
Widows
Cleanliness
The Degree Of Civilization In A Society Can Be Judged By Entering Its Prisons.
Honesty
Integrity
Character
If You Love Everything, You Will Perceive The Divine Mystery Of Things.
Gratitude
World And Love
Embracing Love
Everything Passes, Only Truth Remains.
Remains
To Be Acutely Conscious Is A Disease, A Real, Honest-to-goodness Disease.
Real
Disease
Honest
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.
Stupid
Intelligent
Men
She Looked Much Younger Than Her Age, Indeed, Which Is Almost Always The Case With Women Who Retain Serenity Of Spirit, Sensitiveness And Pure Sincere Warmth Of Heart To Old Age.
Heart
Serenity
Age
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.
Dream
Real
Men
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.
Liars
Lying
Wrath
Can A Man Of Perception Respect Himself At All?
Men
Perception
Ah, Father! That’s Words And Only Words! Forgive! If He’d Not Been Run Over, He’d Have Come Home Today Drunk And His Only Shirt Dirty And In Rags And He’d Have Fallen Asleep Like A Log, And I Should Have Been Sousing And Rinsing Till Daybreak, Washing His Rags And The Children’s And Then Drying Them By The Window And As Soon As It Was Daylight I Should Have Been Darning Them. What’s The Use Of Talking Forgiveness! I Have Forgiven As It Is!
Running
Children
Father
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.
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Fall
Eye
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.
Bees
Doe
Way
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.
Hate
Men
Self
I Drink Because I Wish To Multiply My Sufferings.
Suffering
Wish
Drink
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.
Simple
Neighbor
Needed
Fathers, Provoke Not Your Children To Wrath.
Karma
Children
Father
Humiliate The Reason And Distort The Soul.
Soul
Reason
Humiliate
For A Woman, All Resurrection, All Salvation, From Whatever Perdition, Lies In Love; In Fact, It Is Her Only Way To It.
Lying
Deceit
Way
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.
Dream
Men
People
Psychology Lures Even Most Serious People Into Romancing, And Quite Unconsciously.
People
Psychology
Serious
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.
Never Forget
Complicated
Motive
To Love Is To Suffer And There Can Be No Love Otherwise.
Love
Love Is
Suffering
Let Us Be Servants In Order To Be Leaders.
Faith
Inspiration
Order
Your Hand Is Cold, Mine Burns Like Fire. How Blind You Are, Nastenka!
Fire
Hands
Cold
Sometimes We Desire Absolute Nonsense Because In Our Stupidity We See In This Nonsense The Easiest Way Of Attaining Some Conjectural Good.
Stupidity
Desire
Way
I Want To Suffer And Be Purified By Suffering!
Suffering
Want
I Want Peace; Yes, I'd Sell The Whole World For A Farthing, Straight Off, So Long As I Was Left In Peace. Is The World To Go To Pot, Or Am I To Go Without My Tea? I Say That The World May Go To Pot For Me So Long As I Always Get My Tea. Did You Know That, Or Not? Well, Anyway, I Know That I Am A Blackguard, A Scoundrel, An Egoist, A Sluggard.
Peace
Long
Tea
Man Has It All In His Hands, And It All Slips Through His Fingers From Sheer Cowardice.
Men
Hands
Cowardice
God Is The Pain Of The Fear Of Death
Pain
Fear Of Death
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.
Reality
People
Different
I Am Strongly Convinced That Not Only Too Much Consciousness But Even Any Consciousness At All Is A Sickness.
Too Much
Consciousness
Sickness
No, Evidently Habit Means A Lot. The Devil Knows What Habit Can Do To A Person.
Mean
Devil
Habit
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.
Real
Men
Thinking
Thus, As A Result Of Heightened Consciousness, A Man Feels As If It's All Right If He's Bad As Long As He Knows It- As Though That Were Any Consolation.
Men
Long
Consciousness
'ever Seen A Leaf - A Leaf From A Tree?' 'yes.' I Saw One Recently - A Yellow One, A Little Green, Wilted At The Edges. Blown By The Wind. When I Was A Little Boy, I Used To Shut My Eyes In Winter And Imagine A Green Leaf, With Veins On It, And The Sun Shining ...' 'what's This - An Allegory?' "no; Why? Not An Allegory - A Leaf, Just A Leaf. A Leaf Is Good. Everything's Good.'
Eye
Winter
Boys
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.
Law
Two
Advice
Put Away Your Gods And Come And Worship Ours, Or We Will Kill You And Your Gods!
Worship
Beauty Would Save The World.
Deep Thought
World
Save The World
Pass Us By, And Forgive Us Our Happiness
Forgiving
To Cook Your Hare You Must First Catch It.
Cooking
Firsts
Hares
Suppose, Gentleman, That Man Is Not Stupid.
Stupid
Men
Gentleman
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.
Profound
Ridiculous
Left
A Man Is No Example For A Woman. It’s A Different Thing.
Men
Example
Different
...chance May Do Anything.
May
Chance
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.
Growing Up
Dust
Ashes
One Must Be A Great Man Indeed To Be Able To Hold Out Even Against Common Sense." "or Else A Fool.
Men
Common Sense
Able
If There Is No God, Then I Am God.
There Is No God
Ifs
Dreams Seem To Be Spurred On Not By Reason But By Desire, Not By The Head But By The Heart, And Yet What Complicated Tricks My Reason Has Played Sometimes In Dreams.
Dream
Heart
Desire
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.
Children
People
Littles
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.
Hero
Intelligent
Men
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!
Life
Character
Men
If It Were Considered Desirable To Destroy A Human Being, The Only Thing Necessary Would Be To Give His Work A Character Of Uselessness
Inspiration
Character
Giving
Remember That You Must Never Sell Your Soul. Never Accept Payment In Advance.... Never Give A Work To The Printer Before It Is Finished. This Is The Worst Thing You Can Do.... It Constitutes The Murder Of Your Own Ideas.
Ideas
Giving
Soul
A Beast Can Never Be As Cruel As A Human Being, So Artistically, So Picturesquely Cruel.
Beast
Humans
Human Beings
I Cannot Truly Imagine A Truly Great Person Who Hasn't Suffered.
Imagine
Great Person
Persons
Until You Have Become Really, In Actual Fact, As Brother To Everyone, Brotherhood Will Not Come To Pass.
Brother
Brotherhood
Facts
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.
Respect
Lying
Men
Alyosha's Heart Could Not Bear Uncertainty, For The Nature Of His Love Was Always Active. He Could Not Love Passively; Once He Loved, He Immediately Also Began To Help.
Heart
His Love
Bears
They Won't Let Me ... I Can't Be ... Good!
Be Good
Let Me
I Can
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.
Two
Four
Littles
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
Hate
Feelings
The More You Succeed In Loving, The More You'll Be Convinced At The Existence Of God And The Immortality Of Your Soul.
Love
God
Soul
The More I Detest Men Individually The More Ardent Becomes My Love For Humanity.
Men
Humanity
Brothers Karamazov
For What Is Man Without Desires, Without Free Will, And Without The Power Of Choice But A Stop In An Organ Pipe?
Men
Choices
Desire
From Harmony, From Heavenly Harmony, This Universal Frame Began: From Harmony To Harmony Through All The Compass Of The Notes It Ran, The Diapason Closing Full In Man.
Men
Compass
Harmony
There Is Immeasurably More Left Inside Than What Comes Out In Words.
Healing
Deep Thought
A Loss For Words
I'm Drunk But Truthful.
Drunk
Truthful
With Love One Can Live Even Without Happiness.
Love
Inspirational
Best Love
If He's Honest, He'll Steal; If He's Human, He'll Murder; If He's Faithful, He'll Deceive.
Lying
Faithful
Deceit
What Man Wants Is Simply Independent Choice, Whatever That Independence May Cost And Wherever It May Lead.
Independent
Men
Choices
If Not Reason, Then The Devil.
Devil
Reason
Ifs
Everything Will Come In Due Course, If You Have The Gumption To Wait For It.
Waiting
Gumption
Courses
In Most Cases, People, Even Wicked People, Are Far More Naive And Simple-hearted Than One Generally Assumes. And So Are We.
Simple
People
Wicked
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
Philosophy
Effort
Way
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.
Mother
Baby
Heart
Civilization Has Made Man, If Not Always More Bloodthirsty, At Least More Viciously, More Horribly Bloodthirsty.
Men
Civilization
Deep Thought
If God Does Not Exist, Then Everything Is Permissible.
Atheist
Doe
Ifs
Grown-up People Do Not Know That A Child Can Give Exceedingly Good Advice Even In The Most Difficult Case.
Children
People
Giving
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?
Men
Hands
Evil
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.
Life
Dream
Memories
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.
Spring
Believe
Miracle
But How Could You Live And Have No Story To Tell?
Stories
Existentialism
Minimalist
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.
Brother
Lying
Firsts
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?
Hero
Adversity
Light
The Jealous Are The Readiest Of All To Forgive, And All Women Know It.
Jealous
Forgiving
Knows
I Go To Spread The Tidings, I Want To Spread The Tidings Of What? Of The Truth , For I Have Seen It, Have Seen It With My Own Eyes , Have Seen It In All Its Glory .
Eye
Want
Glory
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