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... 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

-Fyodor Dostoevsky

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... The More I

Fyodor Dostoevsky

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... 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

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Was It All Put Into Words, Or Did Both Understand That They Had The Same Thing At Heart And In Their Minds, So That There Was No Need To Speak Of It Aloud, And Better Not To Speak Of It?

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.

The Russian Soul Is A Dark Place.

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

Man Has Not The Right To Turn Aside And Heed Not What Is Happening In The World Around Him, And This I Maintain On Moral Grounds Of The Highest Order.

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?

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.

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

We Are Born Dead, And We Are Becoming More And More Contented With Our Condition. We Are Acquiring The Taste For It.

We Are Citizens Of Eternity.

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

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

Do You Believe In A Future Everlasting Life? No, Not In A Future Everlasting But In An Everlasting Life Here. There Are Moments, You Reach Moments, And Time Comes To A Sudden Stop, And It Will Become Eternal.

At First, Art Imitates Life. Then Life Will Imitate Art.then Life Will Find Its Very Existence From The Arts.

The Perpetration Of A Crime Is Accompanied By Illness!

It Takes Something More Than Intelligence To Act Intelligently.

Crime And Punishment

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.

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.

Pass Us By, And Forgive Us Our Happiness

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.

In Such Situations, Of Course, People Don't Nurse Their Anger Silently, They Moan Aloud; But These Are Not Frank, Straightforward Moans, There Is A Kind Of Cunning Malice In Them, And That's The Whole Point. Those Very Moans Express The Sufferer's Delectation; If He Did Not Enjoy His Moans, He Wouldn't Be Moaning.

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

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

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

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."

Killing Myself Was A Matter Of Such Indifference To Me That I Felt Like Waiting For A Moment When It Would Make Some Difference.

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.

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!"

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

To Go Wrong In One's Own Way Is Better Than To Go Right In Someone Else's.

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

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

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

I Almost Do Not Exist Now And I Know It; God Knows What Lives In Me In Place Of Me.

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

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

Then Christ Will Say To Us, 'come You Also! Come You Drunkards! Come You Weaklings! Come You Depraved!' And He Will Say To Us, 'vile Creatures, You In The Image Of The Beast And You Who Bear His Mark. All The Same, You Come Too!' And The Wise And Prudent Will Say, 'lord, Why Are You Welcoming Them? And He Will Say, 'o Wise And Prudent, I Am Welcoming Them Because Not One Of Them Has Ever Judged Himself Worthy. And He Will Stretch Out His Arms To Us, And We Shall Fall At His Feet, And Burst Into Sobs, And Then We Shall Understand Everything, Everything! Lord, Your Kingdom Come!

What Is Most Vile And Despicable About Money Is That It Even Confers Talent. And It Will Do So Until The End Of The World.

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.

Be The Sun And All Will See You.

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.

Can A Man Possessing Conciousness Ever Really Respect Himself?

There Is No Virtue If There Is No Immortality.

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

Such Power!" Adelaida Cried All At Once, Peering Greedily At The Portrait Over Her Sister's Shoulder. "where? What Power?" Lizaveta Prokofyevna Asked Sharply. "such Beauty Has Power," Adelaida Said Hotly. "you Can Overturn The World With Such Beauty.

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

Brother, I’m Not Depressed And Haven’t Lost Spirit. Life Everywhere Is Life, Life Is In Ourselves And Not In The External. There Will Be People Near Me, And To Be A Human Being Among Human Beings, And Remain One Forever, No Matter What Misfortunes Befall, Not To Become Depressed, And Not To Falter – This Is What Life Is, Herein Lies Its Task.

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

I've Made A Terrible Confession To You, He Concluded Gloomily. Do Appreciate It, Gentlemen. And It's Not Enough, Not Enough To Appreciate It, You Must Not Just Appreciate It, It Should Also Be Precious To You, And If Not, If This, Too, Goes Past Your Souls, Then It Means You Really Do Not Respect Me, Gentlemen. I Tell You That, And I Will Die Of Shame At Having Confessed To Such Men As You.

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.

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

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.

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

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!

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.

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?

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

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

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.

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!

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

Woe To The Man Who Offends A Small Child!

Beauty Will Save The World

...chance May Do Anything.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

Brothers Karamazov

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

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

--you Wouldn't Have Hurt Me Like This For Nothing. So What Have I Done? How Have I Wronged You? Tell Me.

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

And Though I Suffer For You, Yet It Eases My Heart To Suffer For You.

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

If God Does Not Exist, Then Everything Is Permissible.

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.

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

It’s Not God That I Do Not Accept, You Understand, It Is This World Of God’s, Created By God, That I Do Not Accept And Cannot Agree To Accept.

You Pass By A Little Child, You Pass By, Spiteful, With Ugly Words, With Wrathful Heart; You May Not Have Noticed The Child, But He Has Seen You, And Your Image, Unseemly And Ignoble, May Remain In His Defenseless Heart. You Don't Know It, But You May Have Sown An Evil Seed In Him And It May Grow, And All Because You Were Not Careful Before The Child, Because You Did Not Foster In Yourself A Careful, Actively Benevolent Love.

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.

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.

Existentialism Isn't So Atheistic That It Wears Itself Out Showing That God Doesn't Exist. Rather, It Declares That Even If God Did Exist, That Would Change Nothing.

The Sky Was Horribly Dark , But One Could Distinctly See Tattered Clouds , And Between Them Fathomless Black Patches. Suddenly I Noticed In One Of These Patches A Star , And Began Watching It Intently. That Was Because That Star Had Given Me An Idea : I Decided To Kill Myself That Night .

Eh, Brother, But Nature Has To Be Corrected And Guided, Otherwise We'd All Drown In Prejudices. Without That There Wouldn't Be Even A Single Great Man.

Let It Not Be A Beautiful Face,' I Thought, 'but To Make Up For That, Let It Be A Noble, An Expressive, And, Above All, An Extremely Intelligent One.

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

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.

But Man Is So Addicted To Systems And To Abstract Conclusions That He Is Prepared Deliberately To Distort The Truth, To Close His Eyes And Ears, But Justify His Logic At All Cost.

I Am A Fool With A Heart But No Brains, And You Are A Fool With Brains But No Heart; And We’re Both Unhappy, And We Both Suffer.

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

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

One Can Fall In Love And Still Hate.

Falling In Love

It Was A Wonderful Night, Such A Night As Is Only Possible When We Are Young, Dear Reader.

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

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!

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

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.

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

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.

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

I Tell You Solemnly, That I Have Many Times Tried To Become An Insect. But I Was Not Equal Even To That. I Swear, Gentlemen, That To Be Too Conscious Is An Illness — A Real Thorough-going Illness.

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

All People Seem To Be Divided Into'ordinary'and 'extraordinary'. The Ordinary People Must Lead A Life Of Strict Obedience And Have No Right To Transgress The Law Because?theyare Ordinary.whereas The Extraordinary People Have The Right To Commit Any Crime They Like And Transgress The Law In Any Way Just Because They Happen To Be Extraordinary.

Ordinary Extraordinary

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

Oh, If Only I Did Nothing Simply As A Result Of Laziness.

Right Attitudes Produces Right Action

But People Will Laugh At All Sorts Of Things.

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!

The Degree Of Civilization In A Society Can Be Judged By Entering Its Prisons.

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.

If Not Reason, Then The Devil.

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

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?

One Man Doesn't Believe In God At All, While The Other Believes In Him So Thoroughly That He Prays As He Murders Men!

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.

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

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

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.

A Man Who Lies To Himself, And Believes His Own Lies Becomes Unable To Recognize Truth, Either In Himself Or In Anyone Else, And He Ends Up Losing Respect For Himself And For Others. When He Has No Respect For Anyone, He Can No Longer Love, And, In Order To Divert Himself, Having No Love In Him, He Yields To His Impulses, Indulges In The Lowest Forms Of Pleasure, And Behaves In The End Like An Animal. And It All Comes From Lying - Lying To Others And To Yourself.

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

I Saw Clear As Daylight How Strange It Is That Not A Single Person Living In This Mad World Has Had The Daring To Go Straight For It All And Send It Flying To The Devil! I...i Wanted To Have The Daring...and I Killed Her.

You Sensed That You Should Be Following A Different Path, A More Ambitious One, You Felt That You Were Destined For Other Things But You Had No Idea How To Achieve Them And In Your Misery You Began To Hate Everything Around You.

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.

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.

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

To Begin With Unlimited Freedom Is To End With Unlimited Despotism.

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.

... 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.

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.

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.

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

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

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!

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.

I Used To Imagine Adventures For Myself, I Invented A Life, So That I Could At Least Exist Somehow.

Be Not Forgetful Of Prayer. Every Time You Pray, If Your Prayer Is Sincere, There Will Be New Feeling And New Meaning In It, Which Will Give You Fresh Courage, And You Will Understand That Prayer Is An Education.

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.

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

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

The Mystery Of Human Existence Lies Not In Just Staying Alive, But In Finding Something To Live For.

Man Grows Used To Everything, The Scoundrel!

This Is My Last Message To You: In Sorrow, Seek Happiness.

Neither Man Nor Nation Can Exist Without A Sublime Idea.

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.

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

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.

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

Beauty Would Save The World.

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

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.

Power Is Given Only To Those Who Dare To Lower Themselves And Pick It Up. Only One Thing Matters, One Thing; To Be Able To Dare!

I Want To Suffer And Be Purified By Suffering!

- 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.

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

... 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

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?

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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!

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

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

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.

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.

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.

I Say Let The World Go To Hell, But I Should Always Have My Tea.

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

Do You Understand, Sir, Do You Understand What It Means When You Have Absolutely Nowhere To Turn?" Marmeladov's Question Came Suddenly Into His Mind "for Every Man Must Have Somewhere To Turn.

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

Woe To The Suicides! I Believe That There Can Be None More Miserable Than They. Oh, There Are Some Who Remain Proud And Fierce Even In Hell, In Spite Of Their Certain Knowledge And Contemplation Of The Absolute Truth; There Are Some Fearful Ones Who Have Given Themselves Over To Satan And His Proud Spirit Entirely. For Such, Hell Is Voluntary And Ever Consuming; They Are Tortured By Their Own Choice. For They Have Cursed Themselves, Cursing God And Life. And They Will Burn In The Fire Of Their Own Wrath Forever And Yearn For Death And Annihilation. But They Will Not Attain To Death.

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

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.

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

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?

I Am Strongly Convinced That Not Only Too Much Consciousness But Even Any Consciousness At All Is A Sickness.

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.

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

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.

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... .

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

Suffering Is The Sole Origin Of Consciousness.

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

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

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.

Can A Man Of Perception Respect Himself At All?

Nothing Could Be More Absurd Than Moral Lessons At Such A Moment! Oh, Self-satisfied People: With What Proud Self-satisfaction Such Babblers Are Ready To Utter Their Pronouncements! If They Only Knew To What Degree I Myself Understand All The Loathsomeness Of My Present Condition, They Wouldn't Have The Heart To Teach Me.

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Gerard Depardieu

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