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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.

-Fyodor Dostoevsky

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You Know, My Boy,

Fyodor Dostoevsky

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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.

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

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

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

The Pleasure Of Despair. But Then, It Is In Despair That We Find The Most Acute Pleasure, Especially When We Are Aware Of The Hopelessness Of The Situation... ...everything Is A Mess In Which It Is Impossible To Tell What's What, But That Despite This Impossibility And Deception It Still Hurts You, And The Less You Can Understand, The More It Hurts.

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.

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The Soul Is Healed By Being With Children.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

Falling In Love

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

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

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.

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!

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.

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.

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!

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

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?

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.

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

What Terrible Tragedies Realism Inflicts On People.

Since I Wasn't Consulted At The Time Of The Creation Of The World, I Reserve For Myself The Right To Have My Own Opinion About It.

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

Let Us First Fulfill Christ's Injunction Ourselves And Only Then Venture To Expect It Of Our Children. Otherwise We Are Not Fathers, But Enemies Of Our Children, And They Are Not Our Children, But Our Enemies, And We Have Made Them Our Enemies Ourselves.

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

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

One Man Doesn't Believe In God At All, While The Other Believes In Him So Thoroughly That He Prays As He Murders Men!

Fathers, Provoke Not Your Children To Wrath.

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.

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!

I'm Drunk But Truthful.

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

It’s Not God That I Do Not Accept, You Understand, It Is This World Of God’s, Created By God, That I Do Not Accept And Cannot Agree To Accept.

Be The Sun And All Will See You.

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

Gambling Is A Most Foolish And Imprudent Pursuit.

My Friend, The Truth Is Always Implausible, Did You Know That? To Make The Truth More Plausible, It's Absolutely Necessary To Mix A Bit Of Falsehood With It. People Have Always Done So.

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.

Ah, Misha, He Has A Stormy Spirit. His Mind Is In Bondage. He Is Haunted By A Great, Unsolved Doubt. He Is One Of Those Who Don't Want Millions, But An Answer To Their Questions.

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

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

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Being In Love Doesn't Mean Loving.

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

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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.

The Enemies Of Living Life; Outdated Little Liberals, Afraid Of Their Own Independence; Lackeys Of Thought, Enemies Of The Person And Freedom, Decrepit Preachers Of Carrion And Rot! What Do They Have: Gray Heads, The Golden Mean, The Most Abject And Philistine Giftlessness, Envious Equality, Equality Without Personal Dignity, Equality As Understood By A Lackey Or A Frenchman Of The Year Ninety-three...and Scoundrells, Above All, Scoundrels, Scoundrels Everywhere!

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

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

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

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.

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.

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!

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

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

Believe To The End, Even If All Men Went Astray And You Were Left The Only One Faithful; Bring Your Offering Even Then And Praise God In Your Loneliness.

...to Return To Their 'native Soil,' As They Say, To The Bosom, So To Speak, Of Their Mother Earth, Like Frightened Children, Yearning To Fall Asleep On The Withered Bosom Of Their Decrepit Mother, And To Sleep There For Ever, Only To Escape The Horrors That Terrify Them.

When Reason Fails, The Devil Helps!

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

Brothers Karamazov

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

Notes From The Underground

Money Is Coined Liberty.

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

A Man Would Still Do Something Out Of Sheer Perversity - He Would Create Destruction And Chaos - Just To Gain His Point...and If All This Could In Turn Be Analyzed And Prevented By Predicting That It Would Occur, Then Man Would Deliberately Go Mad To Prove His Point.

...chance May Do Anything.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

Life Is In Ourselves And Not In The External.

It Is Easier For A Russian To Become An Atheist Than For Anyone Else In The World.

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.

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

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

Until You Have Become Really, In Actual Fact, As Brother To Everyone, Brotherhood Will Not Come To Pass.

If Not Reason, Then The Devil.

Do You Believe In A Future Everlasting Life? No, Not In A Future Everlasting But In An Everlasting Life Here. There Are Moments, You Reach Moments, And Time Comes To A Sudden Stop, And It Will Become Eternal.

Beauty Would Save The World.

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

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

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.

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

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

Existentialism Isn't So Atheistic That It Wears Itself Out Showing That God Doesn't Exist. Rather, It Declares That Even If God Did Exist, That Would Change Nothing.

It Is Better To Be Unhappy And Know The Worst, Than To Be Happy In A Fool's Paradise.

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

If He's Alive, Everything Is In His Power! Whose Fault Is It That He Doesn't Understand That?

Brother, I’m Not Depressed And Haven’t Lost Spirit. Life Everywhere Is Life, Life Is In Ourselves And Not In The External. There Will Be People Near Me, And To Be A Human Being Among Human Beings, And Remain One Forever, No Matter What Misfortunes Befall, Not To Become Depressed, And Not To Falter – This Is What Life Is, Herein Lies Its Task.

The Greatest Happiness Is To Know The Source Of Unhappiness.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

Woe To The Man Who Offends A Small Child!

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

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

Love The Animals. God Has Given Them The Rudiments Of Thought And Joy Untroubled. Don't Trouble It, Don't Harass Them, Don't Deprive Them Of Their Happiness, Don't Work Against God's Intent.

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.

Money Is Coined Liberty, And So It Is Ten Times Dearer To A Man Who Is Deprived Of Freedom. If Money Is Jingling In His Pocket, He Is Half Consoled, Even Though He Cannot Spend It.

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.

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."

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.

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.

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

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... .

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

Love Every Leaf, Every Ray Of Light. Love The Animals, Love The Plants, Love Each Separate Thing. Loving All, You Will Perceive The Mystery Of God In All.

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

'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 God Does Not Exist, Everything Is Permitted.

I Have A Plan-to Go Mad.

The Russian Soul Is A Dark Place.

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.

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

This Pleasure Comes Precisely From The Sharpest Awareness Of Your Own Degradation; From The Knowledge That You Have Gone To The Utmost Limit; That It Is Despicable, Yet Cannot Be Otherwise; That You No Longer Have Any Way Out; That You Will Never Become A Different Man.

Make Us Your Slaves, But Feed Us.

Neither Man Nor Nation Can Exist Without A Sublime Idea.

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

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.

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

From Harmony, From Heavenly Harmony, This Universal Frame Began: From Harmony To Harmony Through All The Compass Of The Notes It Ran, The Diapason Closing Full In Man.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

Wealth Is The Number Of Things One Can Do Without.

I Used To Imagine Adventures For Myself, I Invented A Life, So That I Could At Least Exist Somehow.

If There Is No God, Everything Is Permitted.

There Is No God

You Can Be Sincere And Still Be Stupid.

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

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

Be Not Forgetful Of Prayer. Every Time You Pray, If Your Prayer Is Sincere, There Will Be New Feeling And New Meaning In It, Which Will Give You Fresh Courage, And You Will Understand That Prayer Is An Education.

It Is Easier For A Russian To Become An Atheist, Than For Any Other Nationality In The World. And Not Only Does A Russian 'become An Atheist,' But He Actually Believes In Atheism, Just As Though He Had Found A New Faith, Not Perceiving That He Has Pinned His Faith To A Negation. Such Is Our Anguish Of Thirst!

Man Is A Creative Animal, Doomed To Strive Toward A Goal, Engaged In Full-time Engineering.

There Is No Object On Earth Which Cannot Be Looked At From A Cosmic Point Of View.

I Will Not And Cannot Believe That Evil Is The Normal Condition Of Mankind.

Can A Man Possessing Conciousness Ever Really Respect Himself?

To Think Too Much Is A Disease.

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.

Faith Does Not, In The Realist, Spring From The Miracle But The Miracle From Faith. If The Realist Once Believes, Then He Is Bound By His Very Realism To Admit The Miraculous Also.

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

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

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

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".

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

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

Catch Several Hares And You Won't Catch One.

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.

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.

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.

Let Us Be Servants In Order To Be Leaders.

With Love One Can Live Even Without Happiness.

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.

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

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

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.'

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

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.

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

Reason Is The Slave Of Passion.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

It Takes Something More Than Intelligence To Act Intelligently.

Crime And Punishment

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

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

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