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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?

-Fyodor Dostoevsky

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What Makes A Hero?

Fyodor Dostoevsky

...

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?

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Fathers, Provoke Not Your Children To Wrath.

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

Without God All Things Are Permitted.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

People Talk Sometimes Of A Bestial Cruelty, But That's A Great Injustice And Insult To The Beasts; A Beast Can Never Be So Cruel As A Man, So Artistically Cruel. The Tiger Only Tears And Gnaws, That's All He Can Do. He Would Never Think Of Nailing People By The Ears, Even If He Were Able To Do It.

What Do You Think, Would Not One Tiny Crime Be Wiped Out By Thousands Of Good Deeds?

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

Besides, Nowadays, Almost All Capable People Are Terribly Afraid Of Being Ridiculous, And Are Miserable Because Of It.

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

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

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

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

We Are Citizens Of Eternity.

There Is No Virtue If There Is No Immortality.

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.

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

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

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.

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

Love To Throw Yourself On The Earth And Kiss It. Kiss The Earth And Love It With An Unceasing, Consuming Love.

If You Want To Overcome The Whole World, Overcome Yourself.

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!

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.

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

How Many Ideas Have There Been In The History Of Man Which Were Unthinkable Ten Years Before They Appeared?

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

The Meanest And Most Hateful Thing About Money Is That It Even Gives One Talent.

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

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?

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

The Greatest Happiness Is To Know The Source Of Unhappiness.

Make Us Your Slaves, But Feed Us.

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.

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

Dreams Seem To Be Spurred On Not By Reason But By Desire, Not By The Head But By The Heart, And Yet What Complicated Tricks My Reason Has Played Sometimes In Dreams.

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.

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.

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!

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

In Abstract Love Of Humanity One Almost Always Only Loves Oneself.

Humanitarianism

A Single Day Is Sufficient For A Man To Discover What Happiness Is.

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!

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

I Want To Suffer And Be Purified By Suffering!

Listen, In Dreams And Especially In Nightmares, From Indigestion Or Anything, A Man Sees Sometimes Such Artistic Visions, Such Complex And Real Actuality, Such Events, Even A Whole World Of Events, Woven Into Such A Plot, With Such Unexpected Details From The Most Exalted Matters To The Last Button On A Cuff, As I Swear Leo Tolstoy Has Never Invented.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Brothers Karamazov

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.

We Do Not Understand That Life Is Paradise, For It Suffices Only To Wish To Understand It, And At Once Paradise Will Appear In Front Of Us In Its Beauty.

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

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

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

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

The Darker The Night, The Brighter The Stars, The Deeper The Grief, The Closer Is God!

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.

I Drink Because I Wish To Multiply My Sufferings.

Be The Sun And All Will See You.

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.

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.

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.

You Can Be Sincere And Still Be Stupid.

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.

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

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

Brothers Karamazov

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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 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.

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

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.

Sometimes We Desire Absolute Nonsense Because In Our Stupidity We See In This Nonsense The Easiest Way Of Attaining Some Conjectural Good.

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.

Compassion Is The Chief Law Of Human Existence.

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.

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.

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

Often A Man Endures For Several Years, Submits And Suffers The Cruellest Punishments, And Then Suddenly Breaks Out Over Some Minute Trifle, Almost Nothing At All.

After All, Bluff And Real Emotion Exist So Easily Side By Side.

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

To Live Without Hope Is To Cease To Live.

Hoping For The Best

If There Is No God, Everything Is Permitted.

There Is No God

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

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

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

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

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

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.

At First It Was Simply Liking, Nastenka, But Now, Now ! I Am Just In The Same Position As You Were When You Went To Him With Your Bundle. In A Worse Position Than You, Nastenka,because He Cared For No One Else As You Do.

It Sometimes Happened That You Might Be Familiar With A Man For Several Years Thinking He Was A Wild Animal, And You Would Regard Him With Contempt. And Then Suddenly A Moment Would Arrive When Some Uncontrollable Impulse Would Lay His Soul Bare, And You Would Behold In It Such Riches, Such Sensitivity And Warmth, Such A Vivid Awareness Of Its Own Suffering And The Suffering Of Others, That The Scales Would Fall From Your Eyes And At First You Would Hardly Be Able To Believe What You Had Seen And Heard. The Reverse Also Happens.

But 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.

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.

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

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!

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.

Hang Your Merit. I Don't Seek Anyone's Approbation.

Gambling Is A Most Foolish And Imprudent Pursuit.

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

Happiness Does Not Lie In Happiness, But In The Achievement Of It.

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

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

I Am Crazy About Mysterious Things.

Mysterious Things

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."

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

Do You Think It Is A Vain Hope That One Day Man Will Find Joy In Noble Deeds Of Light And Mercy, Rather Than In The Coarse Pleasures He Indulges In Today -- Gluttony, Fornication, Ostentation, Boasting, And Envious Vying With His Neighbor? I Am Certain This Is Not A Vain Hope And That The Day Will Come Soon.

Is There In The Whole World A Being Who Would Have The Right To Forgive And Could Forgive?

Brothers Karamazov

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

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.

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.

Without A Clear Perception Of His Reasons For Living, Man Will Never Consent To Live, And Will Rather Destroy Himself Than Tarry On Earth, Though He Be Surrounded With Bread".

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?

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.

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

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

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

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.

Nature Doesn't Ask Your Permission; It Doesn't Care About Your Wishes, Or Whether You Like Its Laws Or Not. You're Obliged To Accept It As It Is, And Consequently All Its Results As Well.

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

Suffering Is The Sole Origin Of Consciousness.

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

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

You Can't Be Angry With Me, Because I Am A Hundred Times More Severely Punished Than You, If Only By The Fact That I Shall Never See You Again.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

They Tease Me Now, Telling Me It Was Only A Dream. But Does It Matter Whether It Was A Dream Or Reality, If The Dream Made Known To Me The Truth?

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.

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!

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!

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.

The Most Pressing Question On The Problem Of Faith Is Whether A Man As A Civilized Being Can Believe In The Divinity Of The Son Of God, Jesus Christ, For Therein Rests The Whole Of Our Faith.

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.

God Is The Pain Of The Fear Of Death

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.

Know, Then, That Now, Precisely Now, These People Are More Certain Than Ever Before That They Are Completely Free, And At The Same Time They Themselves Have Brought Us Their Freedom And Obediently Laid It At Our Feet. It Is Our Doing, But Is It What You Wanted? This Sort Of Freedom?' Again I Don't Understand', Alyosha Interrupted, 'is He Being Ironic? Is He Laughing?' Not In The Least. He Precisely Lays It To His And His Colleagues' Credit That They Have Finally Overcome Freedom, And Have Done So In Order To Make People Happy.

Lack Of Originality, Everywhere, All Over The World, From Time Immemorial, Has Always Been Considered The Foremost Quality And The Recommendation Of The Active, Efficient And Practical Man.

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

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.

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.

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.

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!

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

Love Life More Than The Meaning Of It?

Brothers Karamazov

There Is Only One Way To Salvation, And That Is To Make Yourself Responsible For All Men's Sins. As Soon As You Make Yourself Responsible In All Sincerity For Everything And For Everyone, You Will See At Once That This Is Really So, And That You Are In Fact To Blame For Everyone And For All Things.

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!

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.

Let Us Be Servants In Order To Be Leaders.

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

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

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

I Have No Self-respect. But Can A Man Of Acute Sensibility Respect Himself At All?

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

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.

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

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

I've Long Stopped Worrying About Who Invented Whom - God Man Or Man God.

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

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.

For If There's No Everlasting God, There's No Such Thing As Virtue, And There's No Need Of It.

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

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

Inventors And Geniuses Have Almost Always Been Looked On As No Better Than Fools At The Beginning Of Their Career, And Very Frequently At The End Of It Also.

There Is Only One Thing That I Dread: Not To Be Worthy Of My Sufferings.

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

And So In That Very Shame I Suddenly Begin A Hymn.

Brothers Karamazov

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

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.

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

Brothers Karamazov

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

We Are All Happy If We But Knew It.

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!

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

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

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

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

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