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You Pass By A Little Child, You Pass By, Spiteful, With Ugly Words, With Wrathful Heart; You May Not Have Noticed The Child, But He Has Seen You, And Your Image, Unseemly And Ignoble, May Remain In His Defenseless Heart. You Don't Know It, But You May Have Sown An Evil Seed In Him And It May Grow, And All Because You Were Not Careful Before The Child, Because You Did Not Foster In Yourself A Careful, Actively Benevolent Love.

-Fyodor Dostoevsky

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You Pass By A

Fyodor Dostoevsky

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You Pass By A Little Child, You Pass By, Spiteful, With Ugly Words, With Wrathful Heart; You May Not Have Noticed The Child, But He Has Seen You, And Your Image, Unseemly And Ignoble, May Remain In His Defenseless Heart. You Don't Know It, But You May Have Sown An Evil Seed In Him And It May Grow, And All Because You Were Not Careful Before The Child, Because You Did Not Foster In Yourself A Careful, Actively Benevolent Love.

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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.

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.

To Cook Your Hare You Must First Catch It.

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!

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

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

Atheism: It Seeks To Replace In Itself The Moral Power Of Religion, In Order To Appease The Spiritual Thirst Of Parched Humanity And Save It; Not By Christ, But By Force.

I Love The Sticky Leaves In Spring, The Blue Sky — That’s All It Is. It’s Not A Matter Of Intellect Or Logic, It’s Loving With One’s Inside, With One’s Stomach.

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.

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

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.

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!

Woe To The Man Who Offends A Small Child!

And In Fact You're Not Like Everyone Else: You Weren't Ashamed Just Now To Confess Bad And Even Ridiculous Things About Yourself. Who Would Confess Such Things Nowadays? No One, And People Have Even Stopped Feeling Any Need For Self-judgment.

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

That's Just The Point: An Honest And Sensitive Man Opens His Heart, And The Man Of Business Goes On Eating - And Then He Eats You Up.

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.

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

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.

...it All, Maybe, Most Likely, Indeed, Might Turn Out For The Best.

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.

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

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.

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.

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... .

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.

Every Man Needs A Place To Go To.

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.

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

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.

Or Renounce Life Altogether! Accept Fate Obediently As It Is, Once And For All, And Stifle Everything In Myself, Renouncing Any Right To Act, To Live, To Love.

It Is Precisely That Requirement Of Shared Worship That Has Been The Principal Source Of Suffering For Individual Man And The Human Race Since The Beginning Of History. In Their Efforts To Impose Universal Worship, Men Have Unsheathed Their Swords And Killed One Another. They Have Invented Gods And Challenged Each Other: "discard Your Gods And Worship Mine Or I Will Destroy Both Your Gods And You!"

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.

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.

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

Men Do Not Accept Their Prophets And Slay Them, But They Love Their Martyrs And Worship Those Whom They Have Tortured To Death.

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.

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

In A Morbid Condition Of The Brain, Dreams Often Have A Singular Actuality, Vividness, And Extraordinary Semblance Of Reality.

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 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.

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

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

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!

There Is, Indeed, Nothing More Annoying Than To Be, For Instance, Wealthy, Of Good Family, Nice-looking, Fairly Intelligent, And Even Good-natured, And Yet To Have No Talents, No Special Faculty, No Peculiarity Even, Not One Idea Of One's Own, To Be Precisely "like Other People.

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.

...a Condemned Man Who, At The Hour Of Death, Says Or Thinks That If The Alternative Were Offered Him Of Existing Somewhere, On A Height Of Rock Or Some Narrow Elevation, Where Only His Two Feet Could Stand, And Round About Him The Ocean, Perpetual Gloom, Perpetual Solitude, Perpetual Storm, To Remain There Standing On A Yard Of Surface For A Lifetime, A Thousand Years, Eternity! - Rather Would He Live Thus Than Die At Once? Only Live, Live, Live! - No Matter How, Only Live!

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

But Gamblers Know How A Man Can Sit For Almost Twenty-four Hours At Cards, Without Looking To Right, Or To Left.

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

Man Is Tormented By No Greater Anxiety Than To Find Someone Quickly To Whom He Can Hand Over That Great Gift Of Freedom With Which The Ill-fated Creature Is Born.

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

I Agree That Two And Two Make Four Is An Excellent Thing; But To Give Everything Its Due, Two And Two Make Five Is Also A Very Fine Thing.

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.

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."

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.

.. But Do You Understand, I Cry To Him, Do You Understand That Along With Happiness, In The Exact Same Way, In Perfectly Equal Proportion, Man Also Needs Unhappiness

The Secret Of Man's Being Is Not Only To Live But To Have Something To Live For.

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

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

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!

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

. . . Finally, I Couldn't Imagine How I Could Live Without Books, And I Stopped Dreaming About Marrying That Chinese Prince. . . .

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

If Someone Proved To Me That Christ Is Outside The Truth, And That In Reality The Truth Were Outside Of Christ, Then I Should Prefer To Remain With Christ Rather Than With The Truth.

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

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

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

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.

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.

I Know You'll Probably Get Angry With Me For That, Shout, Stamp Your Feet: "speak Just For Yourself And Your Miseries In The Underground, And Don't Go Saying 'we All.'" Excuse Me, Gentleman, But I Am Not Justifying Myself With This Allishness. As Far As I Myself Am Concerned, I Have Merely Carried To An Extreme In My Life What You Have Not Dared To Carry Even Halfway, And, What's More, You've Taken Your Cowardice For Good Sense, And Found Comfort In Thus Deceiving Yourselves. So That I, Perhaps, Come Out Even More "living" Than You.

The Man Who Is Happy Is Fulfilling The Purpose Of Existence

But Do You Understand, I Cry To Him, Do You Understand That If You Have The Guillotine In The Forefront, And With Such Glee, It's For The Sole Reason That Cutting Heads Off Is The Easiest Thing, And Having An Idea Is Difficult!

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

Love Children Especially, For They Too Are Sinless Like The Angels; They Live To Soften And Purify Our Hearts And, As It Were, To Guide Us.

To Live Without Hope Is To Cease To Live.

Hoping For The Best

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!

I Am Crazy About Mysterious Things.

Mysterious Things

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

A Real Gentleman, Even If He Loses Everything He Owns, Must Show No Emotion. Money Must Be So Far Beneath A Gentleman That It Is Hardly Worth Troubling About.

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

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.

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.

This Is My Last Message To You: In Sorrow, Seek Happiness.

It Takes Something More Than Intelligence To Act Intelligently.

Crime And Punishment

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

I Drink Because I Wish To Multiply My Sufferings.

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

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

Brothers Karamazov

The More I Love Humanity In General, The Less I Love Man In Particular.

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.

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

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

Every Blade Of Grass, Every Insect, Ant, And Golden Bee, All So Amazingly Know Their Path, Though They Have Not Intelligence, They Bear Witness To The Mystery Of God And Continually Accomplish It Themselves.

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

Brothers Karamazov

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

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.

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

Suppose, Gentleman, That Man Is Not Stupid.

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.

We Don't Understand That Life Is Heaven, For We Have Only To Understand That And It Will At Once Be Fulfilled In All Its Beauty, We Shall Embrace Each Other And Weep.

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?

I Am A Sick Man...i Am A Wicked Man. An Unattractive Man. I Think My Liver Hurts. However, I Don't Know A Fig About My Sickness, And Am Not Sure What It Is That Hurts Me. I Am Not Being Treated And Never Have Been, Though I Respect Medicine. What's More, I Am Also Superstitious In The Extreme; Well, At Least Enough To Respect Medicine.

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.

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

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

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

To A Commonplace Man Of Limited Intellect, For Instance, Nothing Is Simpler Than To Imagine Himself An Original Character, And To Revel In That Belief Without The Slightest Misgiving.

Much Unhappiness Has Come Into The World Because Of Bewilderment And Things Left Unsaid.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

Humanity Can Live Without Science, It Can Live Without Bread, But It Cannot Live Without Beauty. Without Beauty, There Would Be Nothing Left To Do In This Life. Here The Secret Lies. Here Lies The Entire Story.

Whether One Showed You And Execution Or A Little Finger, You Would Extract An Equally Edifying Thought From Both Of Them, And Would Still Be Content. That's The Way To Get On In Life.

Lying To Ourselves Is More Deeply Ingrained Than Lying To Others.

Deceiving Others

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

I Am A Wicked Man... But Do You Know, Gentlemen, What Was The Main Point About My Wickedness? The Whole Thing, Precisely Was, The Greatest Nastiness Precisely Lay In My Being Shamefully Conscious Every Moment, Even In Moments Of The Greatest Bile, That I Was Not Only Not A Wicked Man But Was Not Even An Embittered Man, That I Was Simply Frightening Sparrows In Vain, And Pleasing Myself With It.

Every Decent Man Of Our Age Must Be A Coward And A Slave. That Is His Normal Condition. Of That I Am Firmly Persuaded. He Is Made And Constructed To That Very End. And Not Only At The Present Time Owing To Some Casual Circumstance, But Always, At All Times, A Decent Man Is Bound To Be A Coward And A Slave.

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

The Fear Of Appearances Is The First Symptom Of Impotence.

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

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.

Make Us Your Slaves, But Feed Us.

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

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

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

We All Come Out From Gogol's 'overcoat'.

Russian Literature

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."

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

You Cannot Imagine What Sorrow And Anger Seize One's Whole Soul When A Great Idea, Which One Has Long And Piously Revered, Is Picked Up By Some Bunglers And Dragged Into The Street, To More Fools Like Themselves, And One Suddenly Meets It In The Flea Market, Unrecognizable, Dirty, Askew, Absurdly Presented, Without Proportion, Without Harmony, A Toy For Stupid Children.

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.

He Was One Of The Numerous And Varied Legion Of Dullards, Of Half-animated Abortions, Conceited, Half-educated Coxcombs, Who Attach Themselves To The Idea Most In Fashion Only To Vulgarize It And Who Caricature Every Cause They Serve, However Sincerely.

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

The Chief Thing Is To Love Others Like Yourself, That's The Chief Thing, And That's Everything; Nothing Else Is Wanted - You Will Find Out At Once How To Arrange It All.

Is It Really Not Possible To Touch The Gaming Table Without Being Instantly Infected By Superstition?

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

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

One Can Fall In Love And Still Hate.

Falling In Love

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.

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

Everything Will Come In Due Course, If You Have The Gumption To Wait For It.

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

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.

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.

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

A Loss For Words

I Believe The Best Definition Of Man Is The Ungrateful Biped.

Everything Passes, Only Truth Remains.

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

The Perpetration Of A Crime Is Accompanied By Illness!

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

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

I Have A Plan-to Go Mad.

What Is Most Vile And Despicable About Money Is That It Even Confers Talent. And It Will Do So Until The End Of The World.

Occasionally I Was So Much Better That I Could Go Out; But The Streets Used To Put Me In Such A Rage That I Would Lock Myself Up For Days Rather Than Go Out, Even If I Were Well Enough To Do So! I Could Not Bear To See All Those Preoccupied, Anxious-looking Creatures Continuously Surging Along The Streets Past Me! Why Are They Always Anxious? What Is The Meaning Of Their Eternal Care And Worry? It Is Their Wickedness, Their Perpetual Detestable Malice-that's What It Is-they Are All Full Of Malice, Malice!

A True Friend Of Mankind Whose Heart Has But Once Quivered In Compassion Over The Sufferings Of The People, Will Understand And Forgive All The Impassable Alluvial Filth In Which They Are Submerged, And Will Be Able To Discover The Diamonds In The Filth.

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

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

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

Let Us Not Forget That The Reasons For Human Actions Are Usually Incalculably More Complex And Diverse Than We Tend To Explain Them Later, And Are Seldom Clearly Manifest.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

You See, Gentlemen, Reason Is An Excellent Thing, There’s No Disputing That, But Reason Is Nothing But Reason And Satisfies Only The Rational Side Of Man’s Nature, While Will Is A Manifestation Of The Whole Life, That Is, Of The Whole Human Life Including Reason And All The Impulses. And Although Our Life, In This Manifestation Of It, Is Often Worthless, Yet It Is Life And Not Simply Extracting Square Roots.

Granted I Am A Babbler, A Harmless Vexatious Babbler, Like All Of Us. But What Is To Be Done If The Direct And Sole Vocation Of Every Intelligent Man Is Babble, That Is, The Intentional Pouring Of Water Through A Sieve?

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.

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.

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?

My Feelings, Gratitude, For Instance, Are Denied Me Simply Because Of My Social Position.

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

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

A Cultivated And Decent Man Cannot Be Vain Without Setting A Fearfully High Standard For Himself, And Without Despising And Almost Hating Himself At Certain Moments.

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

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.

The Degree Of A Nation’s Civilization Can Be Seen In The Way It Treats Its Prisoners

You Pass By A Little Child, You Pass By, Spiteful, With Ugly Words, With Wrathful Heart; You May Not Have Noticed The Child, But He Has Seen You, And Your Image, Unseemly And Ignoble, May Remain In His Defenseless Heart. You Don't Know It, But You May Have Sown An Evil Seed In Him And It May Grow, And All Because You Were Not Careful Before The Child, Because You Did Not Foster In Yourself A Careful, Actively Benevolent Love.

One Can Tell A Child Everything, Anything. I Have Often Been Struck By The Fact That Parents Know Their Children So Little. They Should Not Conceal So Much From Them. How Well Even Little Children Understand That Their Parents Conceal Things From Them, Because They Consider Them Too Young To Understand! Children Are Capable Of Giving Advice In The Most Important Matters.

The Jealous Are The Readiest Of All To Forgive, And All Women Know It.

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

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

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?

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

The Greatest Happiness Is To Know The Source Of Unhappiness.

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Phyllis Schlafly

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