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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.

-Fyodor Dostoevsky

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With Old Liars Who

Fyodor Dostoevsky

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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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

Beauty Would Save The World.

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

To Cook Your Hare You Must First Catch It.

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

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

Only Through Suffering Can We Find Ourselves.

Put Away Your Gods And Come And Worship Ours, Or We Will Kill You And Your Gods!

Every Ant Knows The Formula Of Its Ant-hill, Every Bee Knows The Formula Of Its Beehive. They Know It In Their Own Way, Not In Our Way. Only Humankind Does Not Know Its Own Formula.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

What Can Become Of Him If He Is In Such Bondage To The Habit Of Satisfying The Innumerable Desires He Has Created For Himself? He Is Isolated, And What Concern Has He With The Rest Of Humanity? They Have Succeeded In Accumulating A Greater Mass Of Objects, But The Joy In The World Has Grown Less.

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

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!

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

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

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

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

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!

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.

Trifles, Trifles Are What Matter!

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.

Then Christ Will Say To Us, 'come You Also! Come You Drunkards! Come You Weaklings! Come You Depraved!' And He Will Say To Us, 'vile Creatures, You In The Image Of The Beast And You Who Bear His Mark. All The Same, You Come Too!' And The Wise And Prudent Will Say, 'lord, Why Are You Welcoming Them? And He Will Say, 'o Wise And Prudent, I Am Welcoming Them Because Not One Of Them Has Ever Judged Himself Worthy. And He Will Stretch Out His Arms To Us, And We Shall Fall At His Feet, And Burst Into Sobs, And Then We Shall Understand Everything, Everything! Lord, Your Kingdom Come!

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

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.'

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

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

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

Twice Two Makes Four Seems To Me Simply A Piece Of Insolence. Twice Two Makes Four Is A Pert Coxcomb Who Stands With Arms Akimbo Barring Your Path And Spitting. I Admit That Twice Two Makes Four Is An Excellent Thing, But If We Are To Give Everything Its Due, Twice Two Makes Five Is Sometimes A Very Charming Thing Too.

If You Love Everything, You Will Perceive The Divine Mystery Of Things.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

There Are Three Forces, The Only Three Forces Capable Of Conquering And Enslaving Forever The Conscience Of These Weak Rebels In The Interests Of Their Own Happiness. They Are: The Miracle, The Mystery And Authority.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

Hell Is The Inability To Love.

Inability To Love

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

One's Own Free Unfettered Choice, One's Own Caprice-however Wild It May Be, One's Own Fancy Worked Up At Times To Frenzy-is That Very "most Advantageous Advantage" Which We Have Overlooked, Which Comes Under No Classification And Against Which All Systems And Theories Are Continually Being Shattered To Atoms... [an]will Attain His Object-that Is, Convince Himself He Is A Man And Not A Piano-key!

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.

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

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

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?

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!

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.

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.

There Is Nothing More Alluring To Man Than Freedom Of Conscience, But Neither Is There Anything More Agonizing.

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

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

By Interpreting Freedom As The Propagation And Immediate Gratification Of Needs, People Distort Their Own Nature, For They Engender In Themselves A Multitude Of Pointless And Foolish Desires, Habits, And Incongruous Stratagems. Their Lives Are Motivated Only By Mutual Envy, Sensuality, And Ostentation.

As For Me, This Is My Story: I Worked And Was Tortured. You Know What It Means To Compose? No, Thank God, You Do Not! I Believe You Have Never Written To Order, By The Yard, And Have Never Experienced That Hellish Torture.

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

You Must Accept It As It Is, And Hence Accept All Consequences. A Wall Is Indeed A Wall.

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.

If You Want To Be Respected By Others, The Great Thing Is To Respect Yourself. Only By That, Only By Self-respect Will You Compel Others To Respect You.

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

She Looked Much Younger Than Her Age, Indeed, Which Is Almost Always The Case With Women Who Retain Serenity Of Spirit, Sensitiveness And Pure Sincere Warmth Of Heart To Old Age.

We Are All Happy If We But Knew It.

Sometimes A Man Is Intensely, Even Passionately, Attached To Suffering — That Is A Fact.

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.

Reason And Knowledge Have Always Played A Secondary, Subordinate, Auxiliary Role In The Life Of Peoples, And This Will Always Be The Case. A People Is Shaped And Driven Forward By An Entirely Different Kind Of Force, One Which Commands And Coerces Them And The Origin Of Which Is Obscure And Inexplicable Despite The Reality Of Its Presence.

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

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

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

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

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?

A New Philosophy, A New Way Of Life, Is Not Given For Nothing. It Has To Be Paid Dearly For And Only Acquired With Much Patience And Great Effort

Beggars, Especially Noble Beggars, Should Never Show Themselves In The Street; They Should Ask For Alms Through The Newspapers. It's Still Possible To Love One's Neighbor Abstractly, And Even Occasionally From A Distance, But Hardly Ever Up Close.

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

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

Brothers Karamazov

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

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

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.

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

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... .

Man Is Stupid, Phenomenally Stupid.

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

... 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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

Life [had] Replaced Logic.

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?

Catch Several Hares And You Won't Catch One.

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

Let Us Be Servants In Order To Be Leaders.

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!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

In Summer, Intolerable Closeness; In Winter, Unendurable Cold. All The Floors Were Rotten. Filth On The Floors An Inch Thick; One Could Slip And Fall.

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

I Do Not Rebel Against My God, I Simply Do Not Accept His World.

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.

Only The Heart Knows How To Find What Is Precious.

In Every Idea Of Genius Or In Every New Human Idea, Or, More Simply Still, In Every Serious Human Idea Born In Anyone's Brain, There Is Something That Cannot Possibly Be Conveyed To Others.

It Is Not Possible To Eat Me Without Insisting That I Sing Praises Of My Devourer?

'ever Seen A Leaf - A Leaf From A Tree?' 'yes.' I Saw One Recently - A Yellow One, A Little Green, Wilted At The Edges. Blown By The Wind. When I Was A Little Boy, I Used To Shut My Eyes In Winter And Imagine A Green Leaf, With Veins On It, And The Sun Shining ...' 'what's This - An Allegory?' "no; Why? Not An Allegory - A Leaf, Just A Leaf. A Leaf Is Good. Everything's Good.'

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

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.

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

There Are Things Which A Man Is Afraid To Tell Even To Himself, And Every Decent Man Has A Number Of Such Things Stored Away In His Mind.

Finding Yourself

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

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.

But People Will Laugh At All Sorts Of Things.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

But It Is Possible, It Is Possible: The Old Grief, By A Great Mystery Of Human Life, Gradually Passes Into Quiet, Tender Joy; Instead Of Young, Ebullient Blood Comes A Mild, Serene Old Age: I Bless The Sun's Rising Each Day And My Heart Sings To It As Before, But Now I Love Its Setting Even More, Its Long Slanting Rays, And With Them Quiet, Mild, Tender Memories, Dear Images From The Whole Of A Long And Blessed Life--and Over All Is God's Truth, Moving, Reconciling, All-forgiving!

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

Brothers Karamazov

I Suddenly Dreamt That I Picked Up The Revolver And Aimed It Straight At My Heart My Heart, And Not My Head; And I Had Determined Beforehand To Fire At My Head, At My Right Temple. After Aiming At My Chest I Waited A Second Or Two, And Suddenly My Candle , My Table, And The Wall In Front Of Me Began Moving And Heaving. I Made Haste To Pull The Trigger.

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

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.

But Men Love Abstract Reasoning And Neat Systematization So Much That They Think Nothing Of Distorting The Truth, Closing Their Eyes And Ears To Contrary Evidence To Preserve Their Logical Constructions.

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.

To Be Acutely Conscious Is A Disease, A Real, Honest-to-goodness Disease.

If You Wish To Glimpse Inside A Human Soul And Get To Know A Man ... Just Watch Him Laugh. If He Laughs Well, He's A Good Man.

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

And Do You Know, Do You Know That Mankind Can Live Without The Englishman, It Can Live Without Germany, It Can Live Only Too Well Without The Russian Man, It Can Live Without Science, Without Bread, And It Only Cannot Live Without Beauty, For Then There Would Be Nothing At All To Do In The World! The Whole Secret Is Here, The Whole Of History Is Here. Science Itself Would Not Stand For A Minute Without Beauty

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.

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

I Have A Plan-to Go Mad.

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

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

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

After All, I Quite Naturally Want To Live In Order To Fulfill My Whole Capacity For Living, And Not In Order To Fulfill My Reasoning Capacity Alone, Which Is No More Than Some One-twentieth Of My Capacity For Living. What Does Reason Know? It Knows Only What It Has Managed To Learn (and It May Never Learn Anything Else; That Isn't Very Reassuring, But Why Not Admit It?), While Human Nature Acts As A Complete Entity, With All That Is In It, Consciously Or Unconsciously; And Though It May Be Wrong, It's Nevertheless Alive.

Sarcasm: The Last Refuge Of Modest And Chaste-souled People When The Privacy Of Their Soul Is Coarsely And Intrusively Invaded.

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

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

Therefore, In My Incontrovertible Capacity As Plaintiff And Defendant Judge And Accused, I Condemn This Nature, Which Has So Brazenly And Unceremoniously Inflicted This Suffering... Since I Am Unable To Destroy Nature, I Am Destroying Myself, Solely Out Of Weariness Of Having To Endure A Tyranny In Which There Is No Guilty Party.

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

There Is No God

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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?

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

Learning To Love Is Hard And We Pay Dearly For It. It Takes Hard Work And A Long Apprenticeship, For It Is Not Just For A Moment That We Must Learn To Love, But Forever.

It's A Burden To Us Even To Be Human Beings-men With Our Own Real Body And Blood; We Are Ashamed Of It, We Think It A Disgrace And Try To Contrive To Be Some Sort Of Impossible Generalized Man.

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.

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

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!

Destroy My Desires, Eradicate My Ideals, Show Me Something Better, And I Will Follow You.

Something Better

Wealth Is The Number Of Things One Can Do Without.

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.

Love In Action Is A Harsh And Dreadful Thing Compared With Love In Dreams.

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

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

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."

What Would Life Be If We Had No Courage To Attempt Anything? Taking A New Step, Uttering A New Word, Is What People Fear Most.

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!

[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.

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

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

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

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

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 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.

And, Indeed, I Will At This Point Ask An Idle Question On My Own Account: Which Is Better — Cheap Happiness Or Exalted Sufferings? Well, Which Is Better?

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

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