Great Throughts Treasury

"But you are a great sinner, that's true, he added almost solemnly, and your worst sin is that you have destroyed and betrayed yourself for nothing. Isn't that fearful? Isn't it fearful that you are living in this filth which you loathe so, and at the same time you know yourself (you've only to open your eyes) that you are not helping anyone by it, not saving anyone from anything?"

"But you did not know that as soon as man rejects miracles, he will at once reject God as well, for man seeks not so much God as miracles."

"But you're a poet, and I'm a simple mortal, and therefore I will say one must look at things from the simplest, most practical point of view. I, for one, have long since freed myself from all shackles, and even obligations. I only recognize obligations when I see I have something to gain by them. You. of course, can't look at things like that, your legs are in fetters and your taste is morbid. You yearn for the ideal, for virtue. But, my dear friend, I am ready to recognize anything you tell me to, but what shall I do if I know for a fact that at the root of all human virtues lies the most intense egoism?"

"'But,' I [Dmitri Karamazov] asked, 'how will man be after that? Without God and the future life? It means everything is permitted now, one can do anything?' 'Didn't you know?' he said. And he laughed. 'Everything is permitted to the intelligent man,' he said."

"But, nevertheless, I would add that any brilliant thought or new human thought, or simply to any human thought seriously that thrives someone's head always remains something that in no way can be transmitted to others, although voc6e has scrawled entire volumes and past thirty-five years interpreting his thought, there will always remain something that in no way want to get out of your skull and stay with you forever, and so you end up dying without having transmitted to anyone perhaps the most important of his idea."

"But... that's absurd!' he cried, flushing. 'Your poem is in praise of Jesus, not in blame of Him- as you meant it to be."

"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."

"By showing him so much respect, Thou didst, as it were, cease to feel for him, for Thou didst ask far too much from Him--Thou who has loved him more than Thyself! Respecting him less, Thou wouldst have asked less of him. That would have been more like love, for his burden would have been lighter."

"By the experience of active love. Strive to love your neighbor actively and indefatigably. In as far as you advance in love you will grow surer of the reality of God and of the immortality of your soul. If you attain to perfect self-forgetfulness in the love of your neighbor, then you will believe without doubt, and no doubt can possibly enter your soul. This has been tried. This is certain."

"By the way, a Bulgarian I met lately in Moscow, Ivan went on, seeming not to hear his brother’s words, told me about the crimes committed by Turks and Circassians in all parts of Bulgaria through fear of a general rising of the Slavs. They burn villages, murder, outrage women and children, they nail their prisoners by the ears to the fences, leave them so till morning, and in the morning they hang them — all sorts of things you can’t imagine. People talk sometimes of 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. These Turks took a pleasure in torturing children, too; cutting the unborn child from the mother's womb, and tossing babies up in the air and catching them on the points of their bayonets before their mothers’ eyes. Doing it before the mothers’ eyes was what gave zest to the amusement. Here is another scene that I thought very interesting. Imagine a trembling mother with her baby in her arms, a circle of invading Turks around her. They’ve planned a diversion: they pet the baby, laugh to make it laugh. They succeed, the baby laughs. At that moment a Turk points a pistol four inches from the baby’s face. The baby laughs with glee, holds out its little hands to the pistol, and he pulls the trigger in the baby’s face and blows out its brains. Artistic, wasn’t it? By the way, Turks are particularly fond of sweet things, they say."

"Can a man of perception respect himself at all?"

"Can I possibly not understand myself that I'm a lost man? But--why can't I resurrect? Yes! it only takes being calculating and patient at least once in your life and--that's all! It only takes being steadfast at least once, and in an hour I can change my whole destiny!"

"Catch several hares and you won't catch one."

"Certainly we shall rise, certainly we shall see and gladly, joyfully tell one another all that has been."

"Cheap heroism is always easy, and even to sacrifice life is easy too; because it is only a case of hot blood and an overflow of energy, and there is such a longing for what is beautiful! No, take the deed of heroism that is laborious, obscure, without noise or flourish, slandered, in which there is a great deal of sacrifice and not one grain of glory - in which you, a splendid man, are made to look like a scoundrel before everyone, though you might be the most honest man in the world - you try that sort of heroism and you'll soon give it up! While I - have been bearing the burden of that all my life."

"Civilization merely develops man's capacity for a greater variety of sensations, and... absolutely nothing else. And through the development of this capacity, man may yet come to find pleasure in the spilling of blood."

"Claimed the lead on his way without sighting something which around."

"Clearly, he now had not to be anguished, not to suffer passively, by mere reasoning about unresolvable questions, but to do something without fail, at once, quickly."

"Clouds overlaid the sky as with a shroud of mist, and everything looked sad, rainy, and threatening under a fine drizzle which was beating against the window-panes, and streaking their dull, dark surfaces with runlets of cold, dirty moisture. Only a scanty modicum of daylight entered to war with the trembling rays of the icon lamp. The dying man threw me a wistful look, and nodded. The next moment he had passed away."

"Come on, which is ideal when the victim is happy to take her to the slaughter."

"Come, let us go and try it. Why dream about it."

"Come, try, give any one of us, for instance, a little more independence, untie our hands, widen the spheres of our activity, relax the control and we... yes, I assure you... we should be begging to be under control again at once."

"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."

"Compassion is the main, perhaps the only law of existence for all humanity."

"Compassion was the most important, perhaps the sole law of human existence."

"Convictions and the man--it seems they're two different things in many ways. Maybe in many ways I'm guilty before them!...We're all guilty, we're all guilty, and...if only we were all convinced of it!"

"Coward is one who is afraid and runs away, but one who is afraid, but does not run, it is just a coward."

"Dear friends, don't be afraid of life! How good is life when one does something good and just!"

"Delicacy and dignity are taught by one's own heart, not by a dancing master."

"Des Grieux was like all Frenchmen, that is, cheerful and amiable when it was necessary and profitable, and insufferably dull when the necessity to be cheerful and amiable ceased. A Frenchman is rarely amiable by nature; he is always amiable as if on command, out of calculation. If, for instance, he sees the necessity of being fantastic, original, out of the ordinary, then his fantasy, being most stupid and unnatural, assembles itself out of a priori accepted and long-trivialized forms. The natural Frenchman consists of a most philistine, petty, ordinary positiveness--in short, the dullest being in the world. In my opinion, only novices, and Russian young ladies in particular, are attracted to Frenchmen. Any decent being will at once notice and refuse to put up with this conventionalism of the pre-established forms of salon amiability, casualness, and gaiety."

"Despair can hold the most intense sorts of pleasure when one is strongly conscious of the hopelessness of one's position..."

"Destroy my desires, eradicate my ideals, show me something better, and I will follow you."

"Do a man dirt, yourself you hurt."

"Do human beings to reach their target, in order to establish that the destruction of the structure to actually break an instinctive fright; broke or not to deploy the love?"

"Do not despise humans for their sins, despite their sins, so doing, you know, loving Great... If owners slag humans resentment and pain, blistering… so I became like Maaqah criminals in retaliation, half of yourself from this passion with all possess the power, and look for yourself for pain directly like you are responsible for the crimes of these people accept this pain and endure. That calms the heart and reassure yourself will actually realize that you are a sinner, because you can calm these people by example"

"Do not forget that the causes of action of human usually countless more complex and varied than we have them always then explain and rarely specifically outlines."

"Do not insult that they are lying, because a lie can always forgive a lie dear, because it takes the truth. It's not, but it makes me angry that they lie and lie to his bow."

"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."

"Do you know I don't know how one can walk by a tree and not be happy at the sight of it? How can one talk to a man and not be happy in loving him! Oh, it's only that I'm not able to express it...And what beautiful things there are at every step, that even the most hopeless man must feel to be beautiful! Look at a child! Look at God's sunrise! Look at the grass, how it grows! Look at the eyes that gaze at you and love you!"

"Do you know I've been sitting here thinking to myself: that if I didn't believe in life, if I lost faith in the woman I love, lost faith in the order of things, were convinced in fact that everything is a disorderly, damnable, and perhaps devil-ridden chaos, if I were struck by every horror of man's disillusionment -- still I should want to live. Having once tasted of the cup, I would not turn away from it till I had drained it! At thirty though, I shall be sure to leave the cup even if I've not emptied it, and turn away -- where I don't know. But till I am thirty I know that my youth will triumph over everything -- every disillusionment, every disgust with life. I've asked myself many times whether there is in the world any despair that could overcome this frantic thirst for life. And I've come to the conclusion that there isn't, that is until I am thirty."

"Do you know that ages will pass and mankind will proclaim in its wisdom and science that there is no crime and, therefore no sin, but that there are only hungry people. "Feed them first and then demand virtue of them!" — that is what they will inscribe on their banner which they will raise against you and which will destroy your temple."

"Do you know that centuries will pass and mankind will proclaim with the mouth of its wisdom and science that there is no crime, and therefore no sin, but only hungry men? Feed them first, then ask virtue of them."

"Do you know to what a point of insanity a woman can sometimes love?"

"Do you know, to my thinking it's a good thing sometimes to be absurd; it's better in fact, it makes it easier to forgive one another, it's easier to be humble. One can't understand everything at once, we can't begin with perfection all at once! In order to reach perfection one must begin by being ignorant of a great deal. And if we understand things too quickly, perhaps we shan't understand them thoroughly."

"Do you realize, my dear sir, what does it mean that the human does not know where to go? So it has to be for each person to be able to go to somewhere."

"Do you suppose, gentlemen, that our children as they grow up and begin to reason can avoid such questions? No, they cannot, and we will not impose on them an impossible restriction. The sight of an unworthy father involuntarily suggests tormenting questions to a young creature, especially when he compares him with the excellent fathers of his companions. The conventional answer to this question is: 'He begot you, and you are his flesh and blood, and therefore you are bound to love him.' The youth involuntarily reflects: 'But did he love me when he begot me?' he asks, wondering more and more. 'Was it for my sake he begot me? He did not know me, not even my sex, at that moment, at the moment of passion, perhaps, inflamed by wine, and he has only transmitted to me a propensity to drunkenness- that's all he's done for me... Why am I bound to love him simply for begetting me when he has cared nothing for me all my life after? Oh, perhaps those questions strike you as coarse and cruel, but do not expect an impossible restraint from a young mind. 'Drive nature out of the door and it will fly in at the window'."

"Do you think - gentlemen - in the appalling number of young people who commit suicide in our country? They are killing themselves without words, without the wonder - as did Hamlet - what him after death."

"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."

"Do you understand, sir, do you understand what it means when you have absolutely nowhere to turn?" Marmeladov’s question came suddenly into his mind "forevery man must have somewhere to turn..."

"Don’t be over-wise; 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."