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The World Has Proclaimed The Reign Of Freedom, Especially Of Late, But What Do We See In This Freedom Of Theirs? Nothing But Slavery And Self-destruction! For The World Says: "you Have Desires And So Satisfy Them, For You Have The Same Rights As The Most Rich And Powerful. Don't Be Afraid Of Satisfying Them And Even Multiply Your Desires."

-Fyodor Dostoevsky

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The World Has Proclaimed

Fyodor Dostoevsky

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The World Has Proclaimed The Reign Of Freedom, Especially Of Late, But What Do We See In This Freedom Of Theirs? Nothing But Slavery And Self-destruction! For The World Says: "you Have Desires And So Satisfy Them, For You Have The Same Rights As The Most Rich And Powerful. Don't Be Afraid Of Satisfying Them And Even Multiply Your Desires."

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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!

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

Every Blade Of Grass, Every Insect, Ant, And Golden Bee, All So Amazingly Know Their Path, Though They Have Not Intelligence, They Bear Witness To The Mystery Of God And Continually Accomplish It Themselves.

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.

Suffering Is The Sole Origin Of Consciousness.

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!

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.

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

...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!

To Live Without Hope Is To Cease To Live.

Hoping For The Best

If There Is No God, Then I Am God.

There Is No God

I Am Told That The Proximity Of Punishment Arouses Real Repentance In The Criminal And Sometimes Awakens A Feeling Of Genuine Remorse In The Most Hardened Heart; I Am Told This Is Due To Fear.

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.

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

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

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?

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.

I Punish Myself For My Whole Life, My Whole Life I Punish.

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 Only Likes To Count His Troubles, But He Does Not Count His Joys.

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.

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.

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.

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 The Secret Of Man's Being Is Not Only To Live But To Have Something To Live For. Without A Stable Conception Of The Object Of Life, Man Would Not Consent To Go On Living, And Would Rather Destroy Himself Than Remain On Earth, Though He Had Bread In Abundance.

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

Gambling Is A Most Foolish And Imprudent Pursuit.

It Suddenly Seemed To Me That I Was Lonely, That Every One Was Forsaking Me And Going Away From Me. Of Course, Any One Is Entitled To Ask Who "every One" Was. For Though I Had Been Living Almost Eight Years In Petersburg I Had Hardly An Acquaintance. But What Did I Want With Acquaintances? I Was Acquainted With All Petersburg As It Was.

I Will Put Up With Any Mockery Rather Than Pretend That I Am Satisfied When I Am Hungry.

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.

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.

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.

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 Am A Dreamer. I Know So Little Of Real Life That I Just Can’t Help Re-living Such Moments As These In My Dreams, For Such Moments Are Something I Have Very Rarely Experienced. I Am Going To Dream About You The Whole Night, The Whole Week, The Whole Year.

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

Brothers Karamazov

No, I Can't Admit It. Brother,' Said Alyosha Suddenly, With Flashing Eyes, 'you Said Just Now, Is There A Being In The Whole World Who Would Have The Right To Forgive And Could Firgive? But There Is A Being And He Can Forgive Everything, All And For All, Because He Gave His Innocent Blood For All And Everything. You Have Forgotten Him, And On Him Is Built The Edifice, And It Is To Him They Cry Aloud, "thou Art Just, O Lord, For Thy Ways Are Revealed!

Without God All Things Are Permitted.

To Crush, To Annihilate A Man Utterly, To Inflict On Him The Most Terrible Of Punishments So That The Most Ferocious Murderer Would Shudder At It And Dread It Beforehand, One Need Only Give Him Work Of An Absolutely, Completely Useless And Irrational Character.

Every Decent Man Of Our Age Must Be A Coward And A Slave. That Is His Normal Condition. Of That I Am Firmly Persuaded. He Is Made And Constructed To That Very End. And Not Only At The Present Time Owing To Some Casual Circumstance, But Always, At All Times, A Decent Man Is Bound To Be A Coward And A Slave.

If You Love All Things, You Will Also Attain The Divine Mystery That Is In All Things. For Then Your Ability To Perceive The Truth Will Grow Every Day, And Your Mind Will Open Itself To An All-embracing Love

My Sweetheart! When I Think Of You, It's As If I'm Holding Some Healing Balm To My Sick Soul, And Although I Suffer For You, I Find That Even Suffering For You Is Easy.

The More I Detest Men Individually The More Ardent Becomes My Love For Humanity.

Brothers Karamazov

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

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

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

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.

Beyond The Grave They Will Find Nothing But Death. But We Shall Keep The Secret, And For Their Happiness We Shall Allure Them With The Reward Of Heaven And Eternity.

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.

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

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... .

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

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

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.

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?

We Always Imagine Eternity As Something Beyond Our Conception, Something Vast, Vast! But Why Must It Be Vast?

There Is No Virtue If There Is No Immortality.

Suffering Is Part And Parcel Of Extensive Intelligence And A Feeling Heart.

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

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

I Wanted To Pray For An Hour, But I Keep Thinking And Thinking, And Always Sick Thoughts, And My Head Aches - What Is The Use Of Praying? - It's Only A Sin! It Is Strange, Too, That I Am Not Sleepy: In Great, Too Great Sorrow, After The First Outbursts One Is Always Sleepy. Men Condemned To Death, They Say, Sleep Very Soundly On The Last Night. And So It Must Be, It Si The Law Of Nature, Otherwise Their Strength Would Not Hold Out... I Lay Down On The Sofa But I Did Not Sleep...

Every Man Has Some Reminiscences Which He Would Not Tell To Everyone, But Only To His Friends.

Notes From The Underground

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.

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

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.

I Am A Ridiculous Man. They Call Me A Madman Now. That Would Be A Distinct Rise In My Social Position Were It Not That They Still Regard Me As Being As Ridiculous As Ever.

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.

In The End They Will Lay Their Freedom At Our Feet And Say To Us, Make Us Your Slaves, But Feed Us.

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

Woe To The Man Who Offends A Small Child!

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

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 If, When This Fog Scatters And Flies Upward, The Whole Rotten, Slimey City Goes With It, Rises With The Fog And Vanishes Like Smoke.

We Are Citizens Of Eternity.

‎honoured Sir, Poverty Is Not A Vice, That's A True Saying. Yet I Know Too That Drunkeness Is Not A Virtue, And That's Even Truer. But Beggary, Honoured Sir, Beggary Is A Vice. In Poverty You May Still Retain Your Innate Nobility Of Soul, But In Beggary--never--no One. For Beggary A Man Is Not Chased Out Of Human Society With A Stick, He Is Swept Out With A Broom, So As To Make It As Humiliating As Possible; And Quite Right, Too, Forasmuch As In Beggary As I Am Ready To Be The First To Humiliate Myself.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

From A Hundred Rabbits You Can't Make A Horse.

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.

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.

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

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.

But People Will Laugh At All Sorts Of Things.

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

One Must First Learn To Live Oneself Before One Blames Others.

It's Curious And Ridiculous How Much The Gaze Of A Prudish And Painfully Chaste Man Touched By Love Can Sometimes Express And That Precisely At A Moment When The Man Would Of Course Sooner Be Glad To Fall Through The Earth Than To Express Anything With A Word Or A Look.

People Speak Sometimes About The "bestial" Cruelty Of Man, But That Is Terribly Unjust And Offensive To Beasts, No Animal Could Ever Be So Cruel As A Man, So Artfully, So Artistically Cruel.

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.

With Love One Can Live Even Without Happiness.

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.

My Life Is Ending, I Know That Well, But Every Day That Is Left Me I Feel How My Earthly Life Is In Touch With A New Infinite, Unknown, But Approaching Life, The Nearness Of Which Sets My Soul Quivering With Rapture, My Mind Glowing And My Heart Weeping With Joy.

Alyosha's Heart Could Not Bear Uncertainty, For The Nature Of His Love Was Always Active. He Could Not Love Passively; Once He Loved, He Immediately Also Began To Help.

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.

You Can Be Sincere And Still Be Stupid.

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

Continuation Of Life

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.

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!

The Soul Is Healed By Being With Children.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

I'm Drunk But Truthful.

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

Love Life More Than The Meaning Of It?

Brothers Karamazov

The Formula 'two And Two Make Five' Is Not Without Its Attractions.

But Yet I Am Firmly Persuaded That A Great Deal Of Consciousness, Every Sort Of Consciousness, In Fact, Is A Disease.

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

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

If It Were Considered Desirable To Destroy A Human Being, The Only Thing Necessary Would Be To Give His Work A Character Of Uselessness

Just Take A Look Around You: Blood Is Flowing In Rivers And In Such A Jolly Way You’d Think It Was Champagne.

One Can Tell A Child Everything, Anything. I Have Often Been Struck By The Fact That Parents Know Their Children So Little. They Should Not Conceal So Much From Them. How Well Even Little Children Understand That Their Parents Conceal Things From Them, Because They Consider Them Too Young To Understand! Children Are Capable Of Giving Advice In The Most Important Matters.

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.

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

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

I Agree That Two And Two Make Four Is An Excellent Thing; But To Give Everything Its Due, Two And Two Make Five Is Also A Very Fine Thing.

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

Let Us Not Forget That The Reasons For Human Actions Are Usually Incalculably More Complex And Diverse Than We Tend To Explain Them Later, And Are Seldom Clearly Manifest.

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

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

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

Beauty Will Save The World

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.

Right Attitudes Produces Right Action

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.

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

A Fool With A Heart And No Sense Is Just As Unhappy As A Fool With Sense And No Heart.

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

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.

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

When I Look Back On My Past And Think How Much Time I Wasted On Nothing, How Much Time Has Been Lost In Futilities, Errors, Laziness, Incapacity To Live; How Little I Appreciated It, How Many Times I Sinned Against My Heart And Soul-then My Heart Bleeds. Life Is A Gift, Life Is Happiness, Every Minute Can Be An Eternity Of Happiness.

You Are Told A Lot About Your Education, But Some Beautiful, Sacred Memory, Preserved Since Childhood, Is Perhaps The Best Education Of All.

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

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.

If The Person Laughs Well, They Are A Good Person.

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.

[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.

I Utter What You Would Not Dare Think

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

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

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

Times Of Crisis, Of Disruption Or Constructive Change, Are Not Only Predictable, But Desirable. They Mean Growth. Taking A New Step, Uttering A New Word, Is What People Fear Most.

Totally Without Hope One Cannot Live. To Live Without Hope Is To Cease To Live. Hell Is Hopelessness. It Is No Accident That Above The Entrance To Dante's Hell Is The Inscription: "leave Behind All Hope, You Who Enter Here."

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

Don't Think I'm Talking Nonsense Because I'm Drunk. I'm Not A Bit Drunk. Brandy's All Very Well, But I Need Two Bottles To Make Me Drunk.

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.

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

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.

Compassion Is The Chief Law Of Human Existence.

Of Course Boredom May Lead You To Anything. It Is Boredom Sets One Sticking Golden Pins Into People, But All That Would Not Matter. What Is Bad (this Is My Comment Again) Is That I Dare Say People Will Be Thankful For The Gold Pins Then.

An Artist Must Know The Reality He Is Depicting In Its Minutest Detail. In My Opinion We Have Only One Shining Example Of That - Count Leo Tolstoy.

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.

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

If Everything On Earth Were Rational, Nothing Would Happen.

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.

And Now I Am Eking Out My Days In My Corner, Taunting Myself With The Bitter And Entirely Useless Consolations That An Intelligent Man Cannot Seriously Become Anything; That Only A Fool Can Become Something. Yes, Sir, An Intelligent Nineteenth-century Man Must Be, Is Morally Bound To Be, An Essentially Characterless Creature; And A Man Of Character, A Man Of Action - An Essentially Limited Creature. This Is My Conviction At The Age Of Forty. I Am Forty Now, And Forty Years - Why, It Is All Of A Lifetime, It Is The Deepest Of Old Age. Living Past Forty Is Indecent, Vulgar, Immoral!

The Man Who Is Happy Is Fulfilling The Purpose Of Existence

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

But Gamblers Know How A Man Can Sit For Almost Twenty-four Hours At Cards, Without Looking To Right, Or To Left.

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

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

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

Existence Alone Had Never Been Enough For Him; He Had Always Wanted More. Perhaps It Was Only From The Force Of His Desires That He Had Regarded Himself As A Man To Whom More Was Permitted Than To Others.

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!"

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

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

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.

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?

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.

The More I Love Humanity In General, The Less I Love Man In Particular.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

Be The Sun And All Will See You.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

Only One Thing Matters, One Thing; To Be Able To Dare!

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.

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