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[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.

-Fyodor Dostoevsky

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[to Jesus] You Did

Fyodor Dostoevsky

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[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.

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He Walked On Without Resting. He Had A Terrible Longing For Some Distraction, But He Did Not Know What To Do, What To Attempt. A New Overwhelming Sensation Was Gaining More And More Mastery Over Him Every Moment; This Was An Immeasurable, Almost Physical, Repulsion For Everything Surrounding Him, An Obstinate, Malignant Feeling Of Hatred. All Who Met Him Were Loathsome To Him - He Loathed Their Faces, Their Movements, Their Gestures. If Anyone Had Addressed Him, He Felt That He Might Have Spat At Him Or Bitten Him... .

If He's Honest, He'll Steal; If He's Human, He'll Murder; If He's Faithful, He'll Deceive.

I Must Have Justice, Or I Will Destroy Myself. And Not Justice In Some Remote And Infinite Time And Space, But Here On Earth...i Want To See With My Own Eyes The Lamb Lie Down With The Lion And The Victim Rise Up And Embrace His Murderer. I Want To Be There When Everyone Suddenly Understands What It Has All Been About. All The Religions Of The World Are Built On This Longing, And I Am A Believer.

[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.

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

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.

If The Spirit Has Passed Through A Great Many Sensations, Possibly It Can No Longer Be Sated With Them, But Grows More Excited, And Demands More Sensations, And Stronger And Stronger Ones, Until At Length It Falls Exhausted.

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

Nothing Is More Seductive For A Man Than His Freedom Of Conscience, But Nothing Is A Greater Cause Of Suffering.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

... 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

Gambling Is A Most Foolish And Imprudent Pursuit.

Love Is Such A Priceless Treasure That You Can Buy The Whole World With It, And Redeem Not Only Your Own But Other People's Sins. Go, And Do Not Be Afraid.

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.

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.

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

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

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

Love Life More Than The Meaning Of It?

Brothers Karamazov

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?

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

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

Being In Love Doesn't Mean Loving.

There Is No Virtue If There Is No Immortality.

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

I Want Peace; Yes, I'd Sell The Whole World For A Farthing, Straight Off, So Long As I Was Left In Peace. Is The World To Go To Pot, Or Am I To Go Without My Tea? I Say That The World May Go To Pot For Me So Long As I Always Get My Tea. Did You Know That, Or Not? Well, Anyway, I Know That I Am A Blackguard, A Scoundrel, An Egoist, A Sluggard.

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

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

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.

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

Hell Is The Inability To Love.

Inability To Love

Man Is Stupid, Phenomenally Stupid.

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

To Study The Meaning Of Man And Of Life — I Am Making Significant Progress Here. I Have Faith In Myself. Man Is A Mystery: If You Spend Your Entire Life Trying To Puzzle It Out, Then Do Not Say That You Have Wasted Your Time. I Occupy Myself With This Mystery, Because I Want To Be A Man.

It Seemed Clear To Me That Life And The World Somehow Depended Upon Me Now. I May Almost Say That The World Now Seemed Created For Me Alone: If I Shot Myself The World Would Cease To Be At Least For Me. I Say Nothing Of Its Being Likely That Nothing Will Exist For Anyone When I Am Gone, And That As Soon As My Consciousness Is Extinguished The Whole World Will Vanish Too And Become Void Like A Phantom , As A Mere Appurtenance Of My Consciousness, For Possibly All This World And All These People Are Only Me Myself.

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.

God Is The Pain Of The Fear Of Death

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

Drive Nature Out Of The Door And It Will Fly In At The Window

With Love One Can Live Even Without Happiness.

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

... You Simply Can't Imagine What Men Will Say!

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

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.

What Does Reason Know? Reason Only Knows What It Has Succeeded In Learning.

I Utter What You Would Not Dare Think

Right Attitudes Produces Right Action

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

What Makes A Hero? Courage, Strength, Morality, Withstanding Adversity? Are These The Traits That Truly Show And Create A Hero? Is The Light Truly The Source Of Darkness Or Vice Versa? Is The Soul A Source Of Hope Or Despair? Who Are These So Called Heroes And Where Do They Come From? Are Their Origins In Obscurity Or In Plain Sight?

If Everything On Earth Were Rational, Nothing Would Happen.

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?

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.

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.

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

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

We Are All Happy If We But Knew It.

Neither A Person Nor A Nation Can Exist Without Some Higher Idea. And There Is Only One Higher Idea On Earth, And It Is The Idea Of The Immortality Of The Human Soul, For All Other "higher" Ideas Of Life By Which Humans Might Live Derive From That Idea Alone.

Accept Suffering And Achieve Atonement Through It — That Is What You Must Do.

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

Be The Sun And All Will See You.

It Takes Something More Than Intelligence To Act Intelligently.

Crime And Punishment

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

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

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

Money Is Coined Liberty.

To Be In Love Is Not The Same As Loving. You Can Be In Love With A Woman And Still Hate Her.

Bad People Are To Be Found Everywhere, But Even Among The Worst There May Be Something Good.

Can A Man Of Perception Respect Himself At All?

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

... You Can Never Be Sure Of What Has Passed Between Husband And Wife Or Lover And Mistress.

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

There Were Moments When I Hated Everybody I Came Across, Innocent Or Guilty, And Looked At Them As Thieves Who Were Robbing Me Of My Life With Impunity. The Most Unbearable Misfortune Is When You Yourself Become Unjust, Malignant, Vile; You Realize It, You Even Reproach Yourself - But You Just Can't Help It.

Reason Is The Slave Of Passion.

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.

Suffering Is The Sole Origin Of Consciousness.

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.

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

Even There, In The Mines, Underground, I May Find A Human Heart In Another Convict And Murderer By My Side, And I May Make Friends With Him, For Even There One May Live And Love And Suffer. One May Thaw And Revive A Frozen Heart In That Convict, One May Wait Upon Him For Years, And At Last Bring Up From The Dark Depths A Lofty Soul, A Feeling, Suffering Creature; One May Bring Forth An Angel, Create A Hero! There Are So Many Of Them, Hundreds Of Them, And We Are All To Blame For Them. [...] If They Drive God From The Earth, We Shall Shelter Him Underground.

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

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

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.

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.

We Are Citizens Of Eternity.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

Walking Along The Crowded Row He Met The One He Used To Know.

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

Beauty Is Mysterious As Well As Terrible. God And Devil Are Fighting There, And The Battlefield Is The Heart Of Man.

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

Of Course I Shall Go Astray Often...for Who Does Not Make Mistakes? But I Cannot Go Far Wrong For I Have Seen The Truth.

Making Mistakes

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

If The People Around You Are Spiteful And Callous And Will Not Hear You, Fall Down Before Them And Beg Their Forgiveness; For In Truth You Are To Blame For Their Not Wanting To Hear 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.

To Live Without Hope Is To Cease To Live.

Hoping For The Best

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.

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.

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

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.

If There Is No God, Then I Am God.

There Is No God

Through Error You Come To The Truth! I Am A Man Because I Err! You Never Reach Any Truth Without Making Fourteen Mistakes And Very Likely A Hundred And Fourteen.

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.

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!

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.

Life Is In Ourselves And Not In The External.

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

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

Man Is Fond Of Counting His Troubles, But He Does Not Count His Joys. If He Counted Them Up As He Ought To, He Would See That Every Lot Has Enough Happiness Provided For It.

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.

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

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!

What Is Hell?...the Suffering That Comes From The Consciousness That One Is No Longer Able To Love.

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!

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

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

I Am Too Young And I've Loved You Too Much.

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.

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

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

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.

To Think Too Much Is A Disease.

Ah, Father! That’s Words And Only Words! Forgive! If He’d Not Been Run Over, He’d Have Come Home Today Drunk And His Only Shirt Dirty And In Rags And He’d Have Fallen Asleep Like A Log, And I Should Have Been Sousing And Rinsing Till Daybreak, Washing His Rags And The Children’s And Then Drying Them By The Window And As Soon As It Was Daylight I Should Have Been Darning Them. What’s The Use Of Talking Forgiveness! I Have Forgiven As It Is!

I Bless The Rising Sun Each Day, And, As Before, My Heart Sings To Meet It, But Now I Love Even More Its Setting, Its Long Slanting Rays & The Soft Tender Gentle Memories That Come With Them...’ -father Zossima

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.

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

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

So Long As Man Remains Free He Strives For Nothing So Incessantly And So Painfully As To Find Someone To Worship.

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

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.

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.

One Can't Understand Everything At Once, We Can't Begin With Perfection All At Once! In Order To Reach Perfection One Must Begin By Being Ignorant Of A Great Deal. And If We Understand Things Too Quickly, Perhaps We Shan't Understand Them Thoroughly.

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

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

Pass Us By, And Forgive Us Our Happiness

He Who Desires To See The Living God Face-to-face Should Not Seek Him In The Empty, Firmament Of His Mind, But In Human Love.

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

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

I Drink Because I Wish To Multiply My Sufferings.

There Is Not A Thing That Is More Positive Than Bread.

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.

It's Not Miracles That Generate Faith, But Faith That Generates Miracles.

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

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!

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

Generally Speaking, Our Prisoners Were Capable Of Loving Animals, And If They Had Been Allowed They Would Have Delighted To Rear Large Numbers Of Domestic Animals And Birds In The Prison. And I Wonder What Other Activity Could Better Have Softened And Refined Their Harsh And Brutal Natures Than This. But It Was Not Allowed. Neither The Regulations Nor The Nature Of The Prison Made It Possible.

God Is Necessary, And Therefore Must Exist...but I Know That He Does Not And Cannot Exist...don't You Understand That A Man With These Two Thoughts Cannot Go On Living?

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.

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.

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!

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.

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

‎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.

Imagine That You Are Creating A Fabric Of Human Destiny With The Object Of Making Men Happy In The End, Giving Them Peace And Rest At Last. Imagine That You Are Doing This But That It Is Essential And Inevitable To Torture To Death Only One Tiny Creature...in Order To Found That Edifice On Its Unavenged Tears. Would You Consent To Be The Architect On Those Conditions? Tell Me. Tell The Truth.

Realists Do Not Fear The Results Of Their Study.

There Is No Explaining Anything By Reasoning And So It Is Useless To Reason.

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

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.

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

All Of A Sudden I Became Aware Of A Little Star In One Of Those Patches And I Began Looking At It Intently. That Was Because The Little Star Gave Me An Idea: I Made Up My Mind To Kill Myself That Night. I Had Made Up My Mind To Kill Myself Already Two Months Before And, Poor As I Am, I Bought Myself An Excellent Revolver And Loaded It The Same Day. But Two Months Had Elapsed And It Was Still Lying In The Drawer. I Was So Utterly Indifferent To Everything That I Was Anxious To Wait For The Moment When I Would Not Be So Indifferent And Then Kill Myself. Why -- I Don't Know.

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

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

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!

Though I Do Not Believe In The Order Of Things, Still The Sticky Little Leaves That Come Out In The Spring Are Dear To Me, The Blue Sky Is Dear To Me, Some People Are Dear To Me, Whom One Loves Sometimes, Would You Believe It, Without Even Knowing Why; Some Human Deeds Are Dear To Me, Which One Has Perhaps Long Ceased Believing In, But Still Honors With One's Heart, Out Of Old Habit..." --ivan Karamazov

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

What Is Hell? I Maintain That It Is The Suffering Of Being Unable To Love.

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?

If You Can Put The Question, 'am I Or Am I Not Responsible For My Acts?' Then You Are Responsible.

One Can Fall In Love And Still Hate.

Falling In Love

I May Be Mistaken But It Seems To Me That A Man May Be Judged By His Laugh, And That If At First Encounter You Like The Laugh Of A Person Completely Unknown To You, You May Say With Assurance That He Is Good.

Neither Man Nor Nation Can Exist Without A Sublime Idea.

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.

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

Notes From The Underground

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

Suppose, Gentleman, That Man Is Not Stupid.

Viper Will Eat Viper, And It Would Serve Them Both Right!

Brothers Karamazov

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.

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

At Such Times I Felt Something Was Drawing Me Away, And I Kept Fancying That If I Walked Straight On, Far, Far Away And Reached That Line Where The Sky And Earth Meet, There I Should Find The Key To The Mystery, There I Should See A New Life A Thousand Times Richer And More Turbulent Than Ours.

Nothing Has Ever Been More Insupportable For A Man And A Human Society Than Freedom. –the Grand Inquisitor

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.

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

A Loss For Words

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

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.

Thus, As A Result Of Heightened Consciousness, A Man Feels As If It's All Right If He's Bad As Long As He Knows It- As Though That Were Any Consolation.

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

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

The World Will Be Saved By Beauty.

They Have This Social Justification For Every Nasty Thing They Do!

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.

Loving Someone Is Different From Being In Love With Someone. You Can Hate Someone You're In Love With

Homeopathic Doses Are Perhaps The Strongest.

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