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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.

-Fyodor Dostoevsky

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The Pleasure Of Despair.

Fyodor Dostoevsky

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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.

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There Is Nothing In The World More Difficult Than Candor, And Nothing Easier Than Flattery. If There Is A Hundredth Of A Fraction Of A False Note To Candor, It Immediately Produces Dissonance, And As A Result, Exposure. But In Flattery, Even If Everything Is False Down To The Last Note, It Is Still Pleasant, And People Will Listen Not Without Pleasure; With Coarse Pleasure, Perhaps, But Pleasure Nevertheless.

Every Member Of The Society Spies On The Rest, And It Is His Duty To Inform Against Them. All Are Slaves And Equal In Their Slavery... The Great Thing About It Is Equality... Slaves Are Bound To Be Equal.

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

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.

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

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

To Kill Someone For Committing Murder Is A Punishment Incomparably Worse Than The Crime Itself. Murder By Legal Sentence Is Immeasurably More Terrible Than Murder By Brigands.

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

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.

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

Even As I Approach The Gambling Hall, As Soon As I Hear, Two Rooms Away, The Jingle Of Money Poured Out On The Table, I Almost Go Into Convulsions.

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

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 Yet I Am Convinced That Man Will Never Give Up True Suffering- That Is, Destruction And Chaos. Why, Suffering Is The Sole Root Of Consciousness.

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?

Filled With Rapture, His Soul Yearned For Freedom, Space, Vastness. Over Him The Heavenly Dome, Full Of Quiet, Shining Stars, Hung Boundlessly. From The Zenith To The Horizon The Still-dim Milky Way Stretched Its Double Strand. Night, Fresh And Quiet, Almost Unstirring, Enveloped The Earth. The White Towers And Golden Domes Of The Church Gleamed In The Sapphire Sky. The Luxuriant Autumn Asleep Till Morning. The Silence Of The Earth Seemed To Merge With The Silence Of The Heavens And The Mystery Of The Earth Touched The Mystery Of The Stars.

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.

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.

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!

Suppose, Gentleman, That Man Is Not Stupid.

Yet, I Didn't Understand That She Was Intentionally Disguising Her Feelings With Sarcasm; That Was Usually The Last Resort Of People Who Are Timid And Chaste Of Heart, Whose Souls Have Been Coarsely And Impudently Invaded; And Who, Until The Last Moment, Refuse To Yield Out Of Pride And Are Afraid To Express Their Own Feelings To You.

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.

I Wanted To Discuss The Suffering Of Humanity In General, But Perhaps We'd Better Confine Ourselves To The Sufferings Of Children.

Every Man Needs A Place To Go To.

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

With Love One Can Live Even Without Happiness.

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.

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.

Even Those Who Have Renounced Christianity And Attack It, In Their Inmost Being Still Follow The Christian Ideal, For Hitherto Neither Their Subtlety Nor The Ardour Of Their Hearts Has Been Able To Create A Higher Ideal Of Man And Of Virtue Than The Ideal Given By Christ Of Old.

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.

Men Like To To Count Their Troubles; Few Calculate Their Happiness.

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.

But Do You Understand, I Cry To Him, Do You Understand That If You Have The Guillotine In The Forefront, And With Such Glee, It's For The Sole Reason That Cutting Heads Off Is The Easiest Thing, And Having An Idea Is Difficult!

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.

It Is Not As A Child That I Believe And Confess Jesus Christ. My Hosanna Is Born Of A Furnace Of Doubt.

What If Man Is Not Really A Scoundrel, Man In General, I Mean, The Whole Race Of Mankind-then All The Rest Is Prejudice, Simply Artificial Terrors And There Are No Barriers And It's All As It Should Be.

Since Man Cannot Live Without Miracles, He Will Provide Himself With Miracles Of His Own Making. He Will Believe In Witchcraft And Sorcery, Even Though He May Otherwise Be A Heretic, An Atheist, And A Rebel.

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

For I Love The Empress Of My Soul. I Love And I Cannot But Love. You Yourself See The Whole Of Me. I Shall Fly To Her, Fall Down Before Her: You Were Right To Walk Past Me.. Farewell And Forget Your Victim, Never Trouble Yourself More!

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

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!

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

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

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.

Everything Seems Stupid When It Fails.

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

There Is Nothing Higher And Stronger And More Wholesome And Useful For Life In Later Years Than Some Good Memory, Especially A Memory Connected With Childhood, With Home.

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

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

Love All God’s Creation, Both The Whole And Every Grain Of Sand. Love Every Leaf, Every Ray Of Light. Love The Animals, Love The Plants, Love Each Separate Thing. If Thou Love Each Thing Thou Wilt Perceive The Mystery Of God In All; And When Once Thou Perceive This, Thou Wilt Thenceforward Grow Every Day To A Fuller Understanding Of It: Until Thou Come At Last To Love The Whole World With A Love That Will Then Be All-embracing And Universal.

Actions Are Sometimes Performed In A Masterly And Most Cunning Way, While The Direction Of The Actions Is Deranged And Dependent On Various Morbid Impressions - It's Like A Dream.

Even If We Are Occupied With Important Things And Even If We Attain Honour Or Fall Into Misfortune, Still Let Us Remember How Good It Once Was Here, When We Were All Together United By A Good And Kind Feeling Which Made Us Perhaps Better Than We Are.

[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.

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

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!

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

Beauty Will Save The World

I Want To Suffer So That I May Love.

Neither Man Nor Nation Can Exist Without A Sublime Idea.

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

For Broad Understanding And Deep Feeling, You Need Pain And Suffering.

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!

Oh, Gentlemen, 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. Granted, Granted I'm A Babbler, A Harmless, Irksome Babbler, As We All Are. But What's To Be Done If The Sole And Express Purpose Of Every Intelligent Man Is Babble--that Is, A Deliberate Pouring From Empty Into Void.

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.

The Consciousness Of Life Is Higher Than Life.

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.

Life Is Paradise, And We Are All In Paradise, But We Refuse To See It.

Let Us First Fulfill Christ's Injunction Ourselves And Only Then Venture To Expect It Of Our Children. Otherwise We Are Not Fathers, But Enemies Of Our Children, And They Are Not Our Children, But Our Enemies, And We Have Made Them Our Enemies Ourselves.

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

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

Because I'm A Karamazov. Because When I Fall Into The Abyss, I Go Straight Into It, Head Down And Heels Up, And I'm Even Pleased That I'm Falling In Just Such A Humiliating Position, And For Me I Find It Beautiful.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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?

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

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

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

Life Is What Matters, Life Alone - The Continuous, Eternal Process Of Discovering Life - And Not The Discovery Itself.

I Drink Because I Wish To Multiply My Sufferings.

Man Is Stupid, Phenomenally Stupid.

In The Newspapers I Read A Biography About An American. He Left His Whole Huge Fortune To Factories And For The Positive Sciences, His Skeleton To The Students At The Academy There, And His Skin To Make A Drum So As To Have The American National Anthem Drummed On It Day And Night.

One Circumstance Tormented Me Then: Namely, That No One Else Was Like Me, And I Was Like No One Else. I Am Only One, And They Are All.

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.

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

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.

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

I Did Not Understand That She Was Hiding Her Feelings Under Irony, That This Is Usually The Last Refuge Of Modest And Chaste-souled People When The Privacy Of Their Soul Is Coarsely And Intrusively Invaded, And That Their Pride Makes Them Refuse To Surrender Till The Last Moment And Shrink From Giving Expression To Their Feelings Before You. To Have Guessed The Truth From The Timidity With Which She Had Repeatedly Approached Her Sarcasm, Only Bringing Herself To Utter It At Last With An Effort.

Fathers, Provoke Not Your Children To Wrath.

I Myself Will Perhaps Cry Out With All The Rest, Looking At The Mother Embracing Her Child's Tormentor: 'just Art Thou, O Lord!' But I Do Not Want To Cry Out With Them. While There's Still Time, I Hasten To Defend Myself Against It, And Therefore I Absolutely Renounce All Higher Harmony. It Is Not Worth One Little Tear Of Even That One Tormented Child Who Beat Her Chest With Her Little Fist And Prayed To 'dear God' In A Stinking Outhouse With Her Unredeemed Tears!

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.

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

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.

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.

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 .

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

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.

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

Above All, Avoid Lies, All Lies, Especially The Lie To Yourself. Keep Watch On Your Own Lie And Examine It Every Hour, Every Minute. And Avoid Contempt, Both Of Others And Of Yourself: What Seems Bad To You In Yourself Is Purified By The Very Fact That You Have Noticed It In Yourself. And Avoid Fear, Though Fear Is Simply The Consequence Of Every Lie. Never Be Frightened At Your Own Faintheartedness In Attaining Love, And Meanwhile Do Not Even Be Very Frightened By Your Own Bad Acts.

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.

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

But To Fall In Love Does Not Mean To Love. One Can Fall In Love And Still Hate.

Falling In Love

Man Has It All In His Hands, And It All Slips Through His Fingers From Sheer Cowardice.

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

Every Man Has Some Reminiscences Which He Would Not Tell To Everyone, But Only To His Friends. He Has Others Which He Would Not Reveal Even To His Friends, But Only To Himself, And That In Secret. But Finally There Are Still Others Which A Man Is Even Afraid To Tell Himself, And Every Decent Man Has A Considerable Number Of Such Things Stored Away. That Is, One Can Even Say That The More Decent He Is, The Greater The Number Of Such Things In His Mind.

Love The Animals: God Has Given Them The Rudiments Of Thought And Joy Untroubled.

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

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

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

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

They May All Be Drunk At My Place, But They're All Honest, And Though We Do Lie-because I Lie, Too-in The End We'll Lie Our Way To The Truth

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

To Cook Your Hare You Must First Catch It.

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

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

We Sometimes Encounter People, Even Perfect Strangers, Who Begin To Interest Us At First Sight, Somehow Suddenly, All At Once, Before A Word Has Been Spoken.

A Special Form Of Misery Had Begun To Oppress Him Of Late. There Was Nothing Poignant, Nothing Acute About It; But There Was A Feeling Of Permanence, Of Eternity About It; It Brought A Foretaste Of Hopeless Years Of This Cold Leaden Misery, A Foretaste Of An Eternity "on A Square Yard Of Space.

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.

You See, Gentlemen, Reason Is An Excellent Thing, There’s No Disputing That, But Reason Is Nothing But Reason And Satisfies Only The Rational Side Of Man’s Nature, While Will Is A Manifestation Of The Whole Life, That Is, Of The Whole Human Life Including Reason And All The Impulses. And Although Our Life, In This Manifestation Of It, Is Often Worthless, Yet It Is Life And Not Simply Extracting Square Roots.

Man Has Such A Predilection For Systems And Abstract Deductions That He Is Ready To Distort The Truth Intentionally He Is Ready To Deny The Evidence Of His Senses Only To Justify His Logic.

Russians Alone Are Able To Combine So Many Opposites In Themselves At One And The Same Time.

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

The Russian Soul Is A Dark Place.

The Greater The Stupidity, The Greater The Clarity. Stupidity Is Brief And Guileless, While Wit Equivocates And Hides. Wit Is A Scoundrel, While Stupidity Is Honest And Sincere.

- 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.

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

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

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

And What's Strange, What Would Be Marvelous, Is Not That God Should Really Exist; The Marvel Is That Such An Idea, The Idea Of The Necessity Of God, Could Enter The Head Of Such A Savage, Vicious Beast As Man.

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

The Man Who Has A Conscience Suffers Whilst Acknowledging His Sin. That Is His Punishment.

There Is No Virtue If There Is No Immortality.

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

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.

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

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

Brothers Karamazov

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.

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?

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.

Man Is Bound To Lie About Himself

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.

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.

At That Point I Ought To Have Gone Away, But A Strange Sensation Rose Up In Me, A Sort Of Defiance Of Fate, A Desire To Challenge It, To Put Out My Tongue At It. I Laid Down The Largest Stake Allowe-four Thousand Gulden-and Lost It. Then, Getting Hot, I Pulled Out All I Had Left, Staked It On The Same Number, And Lost Again, After Which I Walked Away From The Table As Though I Were Stunned. I Could Not Even Grasp What Had Happened To Me.

Man Is A Creature That Can Get Accustomed To Anything, And I Think That Is The Best Definition Of Him.

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.

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

The Whole Work Of Man Really Seems To Consist In Nothing But Proving To Himself Every Minute That He Is A Man And Not A Piano Key.

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.

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.

Beauty Would Save The World.

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.

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

Russian Literature

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.

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

The Greatest Happiness Is To Know The Source Of Unhappiness.

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.

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 .

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

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.

Know That I've Forgotten Precisely Nothing; But I've Driven It All Out Of My Head For A Time, Even The Memories--until I've Radically Improved My Circumstances. Then...then You'll See, I'll Rise From The Dead!

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

We Are Citizens Of Eternity.

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

Man Grows Used To Everything, The Scoundrel!

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?

Only Through Suffering Can We Find Ourselves.

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

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.

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.

Reason Is The Slave Of Passion.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

There Is, Indeed, Nothing More Annoying Than To Be, For Instance, Wealthy, Of Good Family, Nice-looking, Fairly Intelligent, And Even Good-natured, And Yet To Have No Talents, No Special Faculty, No Peculiarity Even, Not One Idea Of One's Own, To Be Precisely "like Other People.

Everything Passes, Only Truth Remains.

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.

I Walked Along Nevsky Avenue.actually It Was More Torture, Humiliation, And Bilious Irritation Than A Stroll.

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

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

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

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

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

May You Be For Ever Blessed For That Moment Of Bliss And Happiness Which You Gave To Another Lonely And Grateful Heart. Isn't Such A Moment Sufficient For The Whole Of One's Life?

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

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

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.

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!

I Know You'll Probably Get Angry With Me For That, Shout, Stamp Your Feet: "speak Just For Yourself And Your Miseries In The Underground, And Don't Go Saying 'we All.'" Excuse Me, Gentleman, But I Am Not Justifying Myself With This Allishness. As Far As I Myself Am Concerned, I Have Merely Carried To An Extreme In My Life What You Have Not Dared To Carry Even Halfway, And, What's More, You've Taken Your Cowardice For Good Sense, And Found Comfort In Thus Deceiving Yourselves. So That I, Perhaps, Come Out Even More "living" Than You.

Here My Tears Are Falling, Nastenka. Let Them Flow, Let Them Flow - They Don't Hurt Anybody. They Will Dry Nastenka.

Above All, Do Not Lie To Yourself.

Occupy Yourself

What Terrible Tragedies Realism Inflicts On People.

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

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