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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.

-Fyodor Dostoevsky

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To Study The Meaning

Fyodor Dostoevsky

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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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

It Is Man's Unique Privilege, Among All Other Organisms. By Pursuing Falsehood You Will Arrive At The Truth!

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

Falling In Love

The World Says: "you Have Needs - Satisfy Them. You Have As Much Right As The Rich And The Mighty. Don't Hesitate To Satisfy Your Needs; Indeed, Expand Your Needs And Demand More." This Is The Worldly Doctrine Of Today. And They Believe That This Is Freedom. The Result For The Rich Is Isolation And Suicide, For The Poor, Envy And Murder.

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

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.

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.

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.

But Twice-two-makes-four Is For All That A Most Insupportable Thing. Twice-two-makes-four Is, In My Humble Opinion, Nothing But A Piece Of Impudence. Twice-two-makes-four Is A Farcical, Dressed-up Fellow Who Stands Across Your Path With Arms Akimbo And Spits At You.

We Are All Happy If We But Knew It.

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.

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

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.

On An Exceptionally Hot Evening Early In July A Young Man Came Out Of The Garret In Which He Lodged In S. Place And Walked Slowly, As Though In Hesitation, Towards K. Bridge.

Above All, Don't Lie To Yourself. The Man Who Lies To Himself And Listens To His Own Lie Comes To A Point That He Cannot Distinguish The Truth Within Him, Or Around Him, And So Loses All Respect For Himself And For Others. And Having No Respect He Ceases To Love.

The Man Who Is Happy Is Fulfilling The Purpose Of Existence

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

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

In A Way There's Only A Fine Shade Of Difference Between The Healthy And The Deranged.

The Russian Soul Is A Dark Place.

If You Happen To Have A Wart On Your Nose Or Forehead, You Cannot Help Imagining That No One In The World Has Anything Else To Do But Stare At Your Wart, Laugh At It, And Condemn You For It, Even Though You Have Discovered America.

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.

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

I 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.

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

I'm Drunk But Truthful.

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

One Can Fall In Love And Still Hate.

Falling In Love

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

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

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

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

Brothers Karamazov

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

Being In Love Doesn't Mean Loving.

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

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.

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

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.

The Prince Says That The World Will Be Saved By Beauty! And I Maintain That The Reason He Has Such Playful Ideas Is That He Is In Love.

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!

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

Make Us Your Slaves, But Feed Us.

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

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...

Life [had] Replaced Logic.

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

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

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

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

I Drink Because I Wish To Multiply My Sufferings.

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

Falling In Love

I Have Been Tortured With Longing To Believe ... And The Yearning Grows Stronger The More Cogent The Intellectual Difficulties Stand In The Way.

I Gave Up Caring About Anything, And All The Problems Disappeared. And It Was After That That I Found Out The Truth . I Learnt The Truth Last November On The Third Of November, To Be Precise And I Remember Every Instant Since.

God Knows What Lives In Me In Place Of Me.

I Think That If One Is Faced By Inevitable Destruction -- If A House Is Falling Upon You, For Instance -- One Must Feel A Great Longing To Sit Down, Close One's Eyes And Wait, Come What May . . .

It Is Always So, When We Are Unhappy We Feel More Strongly The Unhappiness Of Others; Our Feeling Is Not Shattered, But Becomes Concentrated.

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

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

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

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.

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

If I Seem Happy To You . . . You Could Never Say Anything That Would Please Me More. For Men Are Made For Happiness, And Anyone Who Is Completely Happy Has A Right To Say To Himself, 'i Am Doing God's Will On Earth.' All The Righteous, All The Saints, All The Holy Martyrs Were Happy.

For Men Are Made For Happiness, And Any One Who Is Completely Happy Has A Right To Say To Himself, 'i Am Doing God's Will On Earth.'

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

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

Suppose, Gentleman, That Man Is Not Stupid.

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

I Can See The Sun, But Even If I Cannot See The Sun, I Know That It Exists. And To Know That The Sun Is There - That Is Living.

Brothers Karamazov

I Utter What You Would Not Dare Think

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 .

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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?

Gambling Is A Most Foolish And Imprudent Pursuit.

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.

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

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

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!

Fathers, Provoke Not Your Children To Wrath.

God Has Such Gladness Every Time He Sees From Heaven That A Sinner Is Praying To Him With All His Heart, As A Mother Has When She Sees The First Smile On Her Baby's Face.

Hold Your Tongue; You Won't Understand Anything. If There Is No God, Then I Am God.

There Is No God

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

Russia Was A Slave In Europe But Would Be A Master In Asia.

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.

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

It Is Amazing What One Ray Of Sunshine Can Do For A Man!

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

The Most Offensive Is Not Their Lying - One Can Always Forgive Lying - Lying Is A Delightful Thing, For It Leads To Truth - What Is Offensive Is That They Lie And Worship Their Own Lying.

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

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!

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!

Catch Several Hares And You Won't Catch One.

Now I'm Living Out My Life In A Corner, Trying To Console Myself With The Stupid, Useless Excuse That An Intelligent Man Cannot Turn Himself Into Anything, That Only A Fool Can Make Anything He Wants Out Of Himself.

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.

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

A Just Cause Is Not Ruined By A Few Mistakes.

If God Does Not Exist, Then Everything Is Permissible.

I Tell You, The Old-fashioned Doctor Who Treated All Diseases Has Completely Disappeared, Now There Are Only Specialists, And They Advertise All The Time In The Newspapers. If Your Nose Hurts, They Send You To Paris: There's A European Specialist There, He Treats Noses. You Go To Paris, He Examines Your Nose: I Can Treat Only Your Right Nostril, He Says, I Don't Treat Left Nostrils, It's Not My Specialty, But After Me, Go To Vienna, There's A Separate Specialist There Who Will Finish Treating Your Left Nostril.

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.

Man Is Stupid, Phenomenally Stupid.

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.

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.

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

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

Only By Self-respect Will You Compel Others To Respect You.

You Are Told A Lot About Your Education, But Some Beautiful, Sacred Memory, Preserved Since Childhood, Is Perhaps The Best Education Of All. If A Man Carries Many Such Memories Into Life With Him, He Is Saved For The Rest Of His Days. And Even If Only One Good Memory Is Left In Our Hearts, It May Also Be The Instrument Of Our Salvation One Day.

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

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.

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.

The World Will Be Saved By Beauty.

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.

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

Every Man Needs A Place To Go To.

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.

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

- 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.

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

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.

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

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

Above All, Do Not Lie To Yourself.

Occupy Yourself

At Some Thoughts One Stands Perplexed, Especially At The Sight Of Men's Sin, And Wonders Whether One Should Use Force Or Humble Love. Always Decide To Use Humble Love. If You Resolve On That Once For All, You May Subdue The Whole World.

I Do Not Wish You Much Happiness--it Would Bore You; I Do Not Wish You Trouble Either; But, Following The People's Philosophy, I Will Simply Repeat: 'live More' And Try Somehow Not To Be Too Bored; This Useless Wish I Am Adding On My Own.

The Perpetration Of A Crime Is Accompanied By Illness!

As Soon As Any One Is Near Me, His Personality Disturbs My Self-complacency And Restricts My Freedom. In Twenty-four Hours I Begin To Hate The Best Of Men: One Because He's Too Long Over His Dinner; Another Because He Has A Cold And Keeps On Blowing His Nose. I Become Hostile To People The Moment They Come Close To Me. But It Has Always Happened That The More I Detest Men Individually The More Ardent Becomes My Love For Humanity.

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.

Homeopathic Doses Are Perhaps The Strongest.

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.

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.

Suffering Is The Sole Origin Of Consciousness.

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

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

They Were Like Two Enemies In Love With One Another.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

The Soul Is Healed By Being With Children.

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

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.

If You Wish To Glimpse Inside A Human Soul And Get To Know A Man, Don't Bother Analyzing His Ways Of Being Silent, Of Talking, Of Weeping, Of Seeing How Much He Is Moved By Noble Ideas; You Will Get Better Results If You Just Watch Him Laugh. If He Laughs Well, He's A Good Man.

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

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.

Two And Two Make Four. Nature Doesn't Ask Your Advice. She Isn't Interested In Your Preferences Or Whether Or Not You Approve Of Her Laws. You Must Accept Nature As She Is With All The Consequences That That Implies.

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

Neither Man Nor Nation Can Exist Without A Sublime Idea.

Shower On Him Every Blessing, Drown Him In A Sea Of Happiness, Give Him Economic Prosperity Such That He Should Have Nothing Else To Do But Sleep, Eat Cakes, And Busy Himself With The Continuation Of The Species, And Even Then, Out Of Sheer Ingratitude, Sheer Spite, Man Would Play You Some Nasty Trick.

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

Sorrow Compressed My Heart, And I Felt I Would Die, And Then... Well, Then I Woke Up.

If There Is No God, Then I Am God.

There Is No God

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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!

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.

If God Does Not Exist, Everything Is Permitted.

Be The Sun And All Will See You.

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

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?

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.

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

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

Perhaps A Normal Man Is Supposed To Be Stupid-how Do We Know? Perhaps It's Even Very Beautiful.

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

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

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

I Want To Suffer So That I May Love.

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

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

My Friends, Ask Gladness From God. Be Glad As Children, As Birds In The Sky. And Let Man's Sin Not Disturb You In Your Efforts, Do Not Feat That It Will Dampen Your Endeavor And Keep It From Being Fulfilled, Do Not Say, Sin Is Strong, Impiety Is Strong, The Bad Environment Is Strong, And We Are Lonely And Powerless, The Bad Environment Will Dampen Us And Keep Our Good Endeavor From Being Fulfilled. Flee From Such Despondency, My Children! There Is Only One Salvation For You: Take Yourself Up, And Make Yourself Responsible For The Sins Of Men.

The Man Who Lies To Himself Can Be More Easily Offended Than Anyone Else. You Know It Is Sometimes Very Pleasant To Take Offense, Isn't It? A Man May Know That Nobody Has Insulted Him, But That He Has Invented The Insult For Himself, Has Lied And Exaggerated To Make It Picturesque, Has Caught At A Word And Made A Mountain Out Of A Molehill--he Knows That Himself, Yet He Will Be The First To Take Offense, And Will Revel In His Resentment Till He Feels Great Pleasure In It.

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

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.

I Used To Analyze Myself Down To The Last Thread, Used To Compare Myself With Others, Recalled All The Smallest Glances, Smiles And Words Of Those To Whom I’d Tried To Be Frank, Interpreted Everything In A Bad Light, Laughed Viciously At My Attempts ‘to Be Like The Rest’ –and Suddenly, In The Midst Of My Laughing, I’d Give Way To Sadness, Fall Into Ludicrous Despondency And Once Again Start The Whole Process All Over Again – In Short, I Went Round And Round Like A Squirrel On A Wheel.

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

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.

Talking Nonsense Is The Sole Privilege Mankind Possesses Over The Other Organisms. It's By Talking Nonsense That One Gets To The Truth! I Talk Nonsense, Therefore I'm Human

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Barbara Mandrell

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