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The Enemies Of Living Life; Outdated Little Liberals, Afraid Of Their Own Independence; Lackeys Of Thought, Enemies Of The Person And Freedom, Decrepit Preachers Of Carrion And Rot! What Do They Have: Gray Heads, The Golden Mean, The Most Abject And Philistine Giftlessness, Envious Equality, Equality Without Personal Dignity, Equality As Understood By A Lackey Or A Frenchman Of The Year Ninety-three...and Scoundrells, Above All, Scoundrels, Scoundrels Everywhere!

-Fyodor Dostoevsky

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The Enemies Of Living

Fyodor Dostoevsky

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The Enemies Of Living Life; Outdated Little Liberals, Afraid Of Their Own Independence; Lackeys Of Thought, Enemies Of The Person And Freedom, Decrepit Preachers Of Carrion And Rot! What Do They Have: Gray Heads, The Golden Mean, The Most Abject And Philistine Giftlessness, Envious Equality, Equality Without Personal Dignity, Equality As Understood By A Lackey Or A Frenchman Of The Year Ninety-three...and Scoundrells, Above All, Scoundrels, Scoundrels Everywhere!

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Suffering Is The Sole Origin Of Consciousness.

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

If Not Reason, Then The Devil.

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

There Is Something At The Bottom Of Every New Human Thought, Every Thought Of Genius, Or Even Every Earnest Thought That Springs Up In Any Brain, Which Can Never Be Communicated To Others, Even If One Were To Write Volumes About It And Were Explaining One's Idea For Thirty-five Years; There's Something Left Which Cannot Be Induced To Emerge From Your Brain, And Remains With You Forever; And With It You Will Die, Without Communicating To Anyone Perhaps The Most Important Of Your Ideas.

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

But How Could You Live And Have No Story To Tell?

Let Us Be Servants In Order To Be Leaders.

If You Are Penitent, You Love. And If You Love You Are Of God. All Things Are Atoned For, All Things Are Saved By Love. If I, A Sinner Even As You Are, Am Tender With You And Have Pity On You, How Much More Will God Have Pity Upon You. Love Is Such A Priceless Treasure That You Can Redeem The Whole World By It, And Cleanse Not Only Your Own Sins But The Sins Of Others.

I Want To Suffer And Be Purified By Suffering!

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

He Seemed, Indeed, To Accept Everything Without The Least Condemnation Though Often Grieving Bitterly.

Nothing In This World Is Harder Than Speaking The Truth, Nothing Easier Than Flattery.

In Sinning, Each Man Sins Against All, And Each Man Is At Least Partly Guilt For Another's Sin. There Is No Isolated Sin.

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

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.

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!

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

The Russian Soul Is A Dark Place.

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

A Loss For Words

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

I Never Have Frustrations. The Reason Is To Wit: Of At First I Don't Succeed, I Quit!

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

What Is The Use Of Christ's Words, Unless We Set An Example?

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

Humanitarianism

Suppose, Gentleman, That Man Is Not Stupid.

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

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.

Everything Seems Stupid When It Fails.

To Care Only For Well-being Seems To Me Positively Ill-bred. Whether It’s Good Or Bad, It Is Sometimes Very Pleasant, Too, To Smash Things.

Notes From The Underground

Learning To Love Is Hard And We Pay Dearly For It. It Takes Hard Work And A Long Apprenticeship, For It Is Not Just For A Moment That We Must Learn To Love, But Forever.

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

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.

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

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

The Genuine Realist, If He Is An Unbeliever, Will Always Find Strength And Ability To Disbelieve In The Miraculous, And If He Is Confronted With A Miracle As An Irrefutable Fact He Would Rather Disbelieve His Own Senses Than Admit The Miraculous Also.

It Is Not Possible To Eat Me Without Insisting That I Sing Praises Of My Devourer?

One's Own Free And Unfettered Volition, One's Own Caprice, However Wild, One's Own Fancy, Inflamed Sometimes To The Point Of Madness - That Is The One Best And Greatest Good, Which Is Never Taken Into Consideration Because It Cannot Fit Into Any Classification And The Omission Of Which Sends All Systems And Theories To The Devil.

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

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!

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

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

They Wanted To Speak, But Could Not; Tears Stood In Their Eyes. They Were Both Pale And Thin; But Those Sick Pale Faces Were Bright With The Dawn Of A New Future, Of A Full Resurrection Into A New Life. They Were Renewed By Love; The Heart Of Each Held Infinite Sources Of Life For The Heart Of The Other.

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

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

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.

If There Is No God, Then I Am God.

There Is No God

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!

There Is No Virtue If There Is No Immortality.

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

Oh I've Plenty Of Time, My Time Is Entirely My Own.

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

There Are Chance Meetings With Strangers That Interest Us From The First Moment, Before A Word Is Spoken.

I Don’t Even Know What I’m Writing, I Have No Idea, I Don’t Know Anything, And I’m Not Reading Over It, And I’m Not Correcting My Style, And I’m Writing Just For The Sake Of Writing, Just For The Sake Of Writing More To You… My Precious, My Darling, My Dearest!

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?

I Am A Sick Man...i Am A Spiteful Man. An Unattractive Man. I Think That My Liver Hurts.

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

Man Grows Used To Everything, The Scoundrel!

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

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.

If You Want To Overcome The Whole World, Overcome Yourself.

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

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!

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

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

Civilization Has Made Man, If Not Always More Bloodthirsty, At Least More Viciously, More Horribly Bloodthirsty.

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

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

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

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

I Have In My Own Life Merely Carried To The Extreme That Which You Have Never Ventured To Carry Even Halfway ; And What's More, You've Regarded Your Cowardice As Prudence, And Found Comfort In Deceiving Yourselves. So That, In Fact, I May Be Even More "alive" Than You Are. Do Take A Closer Look!

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

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.

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.

Reality Is Infinitely Diverse, Compared With Even The Subtlest Conclusions Of Abstract Thought, And Does Not Allow Of Clear-cut And Sweeping Distinctions. Reality Resists Classification.

Whatever Distinguishes One Lump Of Flesh From Another When We're Alive, We're All The Same Once We're Dead. Just Used-up Shells.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

We Do Not Understand That Life Is Paradise, For It Suffices Only To Wish To Understand It, And At Once Paradise Will Appear In Front Of Us In Its Beauty.

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

But I Always Liked Side-paths, Little Dark Back-alleys Behind The Main Road- There One Finds Adventures And Surprises, And Precious Metal In The Dirt.

Psychology Lures Even Most Serious People Into Romancing, And Quite Unconsciously.

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

I Don't Need Money, Or, Better, It's Not Money That I Need; It's Not Even Power; I Need Only What Is Obtained By Power And Simply Cannot Be Obtained Without Power: The Solitary And Calm Awareness Of Strength! That Is The Fullest Definition Of Freedom, Which The World So Struggles Over!

Humiliate The Reason And Distort The Soul.

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

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

Speak Of A Wolf And You See His Tail!

To Strive Consciously For An Object And To Engage In Engineering -- That Is, Incessantly And Eternally To Make New Roads, Wherever They May Lead.

Talking Nonsense Is Man's Only Privilege That Distinguishes Him From All Other Organisms.

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

Meaning Of Life

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

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.

The Perpetration Of A Crime Is Accompanied By Illness!

It Is Necessary That Every Man Have At Least Somewhere To Go. For There Are Times When One Absolutely Must Go At Least Somewhere!

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.

Paradise Is Hidden In Each One Of Use, It Is Concealed Within Me Too, Right Now, And If I Wish, It Will Come For Me In Reality, Tomorrow Even, And For The Rest Of My Life.

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

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.

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

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

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.

The Soul Is Healed By Being With Children.

If There Is No God, Everything Is Permitted.

There Is No God

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.

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

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

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

[to Jesus] You Did Not Come Down From The Cross When They Shouted To You, Mocking And Reviling You: "come Down From The Cross And We Will Believe That It Is You." You Did Not Come Down Because, Again, You Did Not Want To Enslave Man By A Miracle And Thirsted For Faith That Is Free, Not Miraculous...i Swear, Man Is Created Weaker And Baser Than You Thought Him! How, How Can He Ever Accomplish The Same Things As You? ...respecting Him Less, You Would Have Demanded Less Of Him, And That Would Be Closer To Love, For His Burden Would Be Lighter.

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

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.

If Someone Proved To Me That Christ Is Outside The Truth, And That In Reality The Truth Were Outside Of Christ, Then I Should Prefer To Remain With Christ Rather Than With The Truth.

Love In Action Is A Harsh And Dreadful Thing Compared With Love In Dreams.

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

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?

If One Wanted To Crush And Destroy A Man Entirely, To Mete Out To Him The Most Terrible Punishment, All One Would Have To Do Would Be To Make Him Do Work That Was Completely And Utterly Devoid Of Usefulness And Meaning.

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.

Beauty Will Save The World

To Cook Your Hare You Must First Catch It.

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

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

That's Always The Way With Fanatics; They Cross Themselves At The Tavern And Throw Stones At The Temple.

God Knows What Lives In Me In Place Of Me.

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.

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

Falling In Love

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

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

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.

It Takes Something More Than Intelligence To Act Intelligently.

Crime And Punishment

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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!

I Am A Sick Man...i Am A Wicked Man. An Unattractive Man. I Think My Liver Hurts. However, I Don't Know A Fig About My Sickness, And Am Not Sure What It Is That Hurts Me. I Am Not Being Treated And Never Have Been, Though I Respect Medicine. What's More, I Am Also Superstitious In The Extreme; Well, At Least Enough To Respect Medicine.

But People Will Laugh At All Sorts Of Things.

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

Deprived Of Meaningful Work, Men And Women Lose Their Reason For Existence; They Go Stark, Raving Mad.

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

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

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

They Won't Let Me ... I Can't Be ... 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.

The Chief Thing Is To Love Others Like Yourself, That's The Chief Thing, And That's Everything; Nothing Else Is Wanted - You Will Find Out At Once How To Arrange It All.

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.

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

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

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

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.

To Think Too Much Is A Disease.

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

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.

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.

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?

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

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

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

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

To Love Another Person Is To See Them As God Intended Them To Be.

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.

When He Has Lost All Hope, All Object In Life, Man Becomes A Monster In His Misery.

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

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!"

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.

Woe To The Man Who Offends A Small Child!

But What Are Years, What Are Months!" He Would Exclaim. "why Count The Days, When Even One Day Is Enough For Man To Know All Happiness.

And So I Ask Myself: 'where Are Your Dreams?' And I Shake My Head And Mutter: 'how The Years Go By!' And I Ask Myself Again: 'what Have You Done With Those Years? Where Have You Buried Your Best Moments? Have You Really Lived? Look,' I Say To Myself, 'how Cold It Is Becoming All Over The World!' And More Years Will Pass And Behind Them Will Creep Grim Isolation. Tottering Senility Will Come Hobbling, Leaning On A Crutch, And Behind These Will Come Unrelieved Boredom And Despair. The World Of Fancies Will Fade, Dreams Will Wilt And Die And Fall Like Autumn Leaves From The Trees. . . .

The More Stupid One Is, The Closer One Is To Reality. The More Stupid One Is, The Clearer One Is. Stupidity Is Brief And Artless, While Intelligence Squirms And Hides Itself. Intelligence Is Unprincipled, But Stupidity Is Honest And Straightforward.

Being In Love Doesn't Mean Loving.

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?

And In Vain Does The Dreamer Rummage About In His Old Dreams, Raking Them Over As Though They Were A Heap Of Cinders, Looking Into These Cinders For Some Spark, However Tiny, To Fan It Into A Flame So As To Warm His Chilled Blood By It And Revive In It All That He Held So Dear Before, All That Touched His Heart, That Made His Blood Course Through His Veins, That Drew Tears From His Eyes, And That So Splendidly Deceived Him!

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.

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

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

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

And In Fact You're Not Like Everyone Else: You Weren't Ashamed Just Now To Confess Bad And Even Ridiculous Things About Yourself. Who Would Confess Such Things Nowadays? No One, And People Have Even Stopped Feeling Any Need For Self-judgment.

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

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.

Although Your Mind Works, Your Heart Is Darkened With Depravity; And Without A Pure Heart There Can Be No Complete And True Consciousness

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.

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

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

That's Just The Point: An Honest And Sensitive Man Opens His Heart, And The Man Of Business Goes On Eating - And Then He Eats You Up.

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.

By Interpreting Freedom As The Propagation And Immediate Gratification Of Needs, People Distort Their Own Nature, For They Engender In Themselves A Multitude Of Pointless And Foolish Desires, Habits, And Incongruous Stratagems. Their Lives Are Motivated Only By Mutual Envy, Sensuality, And Ostentation.

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.

Civilization Merely Develops Man's Capacity For A Greater Variety Of Sensations, And ... Absolutely Nothing Else.

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

You Ache With It All; And The More Mysterious It Is, The More You Ache.

Homeopathic Doses Are Perhaps The Strongest.

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Sholom Aleichem

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