Great Throughts Treasury

"First you have to buy powder, pistol powder, not the damp, and not as coarse as for a cannon. Then you have to put the powder in first, and get some felt off a door. And then you have to put the bullet in afterwards, and not the bullet before the powder, or it won't go off. Do you hear, Keller? or else it won't go off. Ha-ha! Isn't that a magnificent reason, friend Keller?"

"For a woman, all resurrection, all salvation, from whatever perdition, lies in love; in fact, it is her only way to it."

"For active love is a harsh and fearful thing compared with love in dreams. Love in dreams thirsts for immediate action, quickly performed, and with everyone watching. Indeed, it will go as far as the giving even of one's life, provided it does not take long but is soon over, as on stage, and everyone is looking on and praising. Whereas active love is labor and perseverance, and for some people, perhaps, a whole science."

"For all I care to remember that punctuality is the politeness of kings"

"For all is like an ocean, all flows and connects; touch it in one place and it echoes at the other end of the world."

"For I have seen the truth; I have seen and I know that people can be beautiful and happy without losing the power of living on earth. I will not and cannot believe that evil is the normal condition of mankind."

"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!"

"For if there's no everlasting God, there's no such thing as virtue, and there's no need of it."

"For it will come to pass that even the most corrupt of our rich men will finally be ashamed of his riches before the poor man, and the poor man, seeing his humility, will understand and yield to him in joy, and will respond with kindness to his gracious shame."

"For know, dear ones, that everyone of us is undoubtedly responsible for all men- and everything on earth, not merely through the general sinfulness of creation, but each one personally for all mankind and every individual man. This knowledge is the crown of life for the monk and forevery man. For monks are not a special sort of men, but only what all men ought to be. Only through that knowledge, our heart grows soft with infinite, universal, inexhaustible love."

"for man seeks not so much God as the miraculous."

"For men are made for happiness, and anyone who is completely happy has a right to say to himself, ‘I am doing God's will on earth.’ All the righteous, all the saints, all the holy martyrs were happy."

"For no reason, but the sunrise, the bay of Naples, the sea—you look at them and it makes you sad. What’s most revolting is that one is really sad! No, it’s better at home. Here at least one blames others foreverything and excuses oneself."

"For not only is an odd man "not always" a particular and isolated case, but, on the contrary, it sometimes happens that it is precisely he, perhaps, who bears within himself the heart of the whole, while the other people of his epoch have all for some reason been torn away from it for a time by some kind of flooding wind."

"For socialism is not merely the labor question, it is before all things the atheistic question, the question of the form taken by atheism to-day, the question of the tower of Babel built without God, not to mount to Heaven from Earth but to set up Heaven on earth."

"For the happiness created for people, and who is quite happy, he was awarded the right to say: I have fulfilled the covenant of God on this earth. All the righteous, all the saints, all the holy martyrs were all happy."

"For the idea was by no means so stupid as it seems now that it has failed... (Everything seems stupid when it fails.)"

"For the secret of human existence lies not only in living, but in knowing what to live for."

"For though your mind is active enough, your heart is darkened with corruption, and without a pure heart there can be no full or genuine sensibility."

"For we've reached a point where we regard real ‘living life’ almost as labor, almost as service, and we all agree in ourselves that it's better from a book."

"For what is it you and I are trying to do now? What I'm trying to do is to attempt to explain to you as quickly as possible the most important thing about me, that is to say, what sort of man I am, what I believe in what I hope for - that's it isn't it? And that's why I declare that I accept God plainly and simply. But there's this that has to be said: if God really exists and if he really has created the world, then, as we all know, he created it in accordance with the Euclidean geometry, and he created the human mind with the conception of only the three dimensions of space. And yet there have been and there still are mathematicians and philosophers, some of them indeed men of extraordinary genius, who doubt whether the whole universe, or, to put it more wildly, all existence was created only according to Euclidean geometry and they even dare to dream that two parallel lines which, according to Euclid can never meet on earth, may meet somewhere in infinity. I, my dear chap, have come to the conclusion that if I can't understand even that, then how can I be expected to understand about God? I humbly admit that I have no abilities for settling such questions. And I advise you too, Aloysha, my friend, never to think about it, and least of all about whether there is a God or not. All these problems which are entirely unsuitable to a mind created with the idea of only three dimensions. And so I accept God, and I accept him not only without reluctance, but what's more, I accept his divine wisdom and his purpose- which are completely beyond our comprehension."

"For what is man without desires, without free will, and without the power of choice but a stop in an organ pipe?"

"For, after all, you do grow up, you do outgrow your ideals, which turn to dust and ashes, which are shattered into fragments; and if you have no other life, you just have to build one up out of these fragments. And all the time your soul is craving and longing for something else. And in vain does the dreamer rummage about in his old dreams, raking them over as though they were a heap of cinders, looking in 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!"

"Forevery man must have somewhere to turn."

"Foreveryone now strives most of all to separate his person, wishing to experience the fullness of life within himself, and yet what comes of all his efforts is not the fullness of life, but full suicide, for instead of the fullness of self-definition, they fall into complete isolation."

"Forgive me... for my love -for ruining you with my love."

"From our conversation, of course, there was nothing. I did not know what to say to her, and she probably would not understand. I just wept bitterly, and so left without saying anything to her."

"From the dim dark of the night came out a solid black mass of buildings that spread over a vast area. The village Mokroe counted two thousand souls, at this hour, but everything was already asleep, only sparse lights gleamed here and there through the darkness."

"From the higher harmony altogether refuse. Not worth the tears of that one tortured child who beat itself Kulachenko in the chest and prayed in its stinking hovel unredeemed tears to his dear God! It is not necessary because the tears of his left unredeemed. They must be atoned for, or there can be no harmony!"

"General Ivolgin, like all drunkards, was very emotional, and, like all drunkards who have sunk very low, he was much upset by memories of the happy past."

"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."

"Gentlemen, - he shouted loudly to everyone - Prince argues that beauty will save the world!"

"Gentlemen, I am tormented by questions; answer them for me."

"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."

"Gentlemen, perhaps, indeed, the highest in the interest of every human being, even precious or (to stay within the framework of logic) are more useful (but not list just mentioned), on top of all the interests, all for the sake of people need to be ready to break the rules, so the mind , honor, peace, prosperity, in short, has an interest can come to all the beautiful and useful things, gentlemen."

"Gentlemen, some of the questions gnawing smoking stands, what happens when I give them a solution. For example, you give up old habits of people, the will of the science, common sense would you like to edit ba?da?acak style. However, such a breeding humans is not only possible, but also imperative you know that? According to what is in need of the treatment in the provision of human will give this degree? In short, how did you decide to benefit people truly such a breeding? Let's be clear, supported by reason and arithmetic truth, not that the people are always helpful to the regular interest is, why it is so strongly confident counted a law for all of us? This is only an estimate now."

"Gentlemen, we are all cruel, we are all monsters, we all make people weep, mothers and nursing babies, but of all--let it be settled here and now--of all, I am the lowest vermin! So be it! Every day of my life I've been beating my breast and promising to reform, and every day I've done the same vile things. I understand now that for men such as I a blow is needed, a blow of fate, to catch them as with a noose and bind them by an external force. Never, never would I have risen by myself! But the thunder has struck. I accept the torment of accusation and of my disgrace before all, I want to suffer and be purified by suffering!"

"God has not grudged you intelligence--you are capable of answering the question, 'Am I or am I not responsible for my actions?' Therefore, there is no doubt that you are responsible. 'Temptation cannot but enter the world, but woe unto him through whom temptation cometh.' As to your transgression itself, well, many commit similar ones, but go on living in peace with their consciences and even consider such things as inevitable errors of youth. There are also odd men with the smell of the grave already about them who likewise still go on sinning, playfully shrugging off their responsibility and reassuring themselves. The world is full of such horrors. You, at least, have felt the full depth of."

"God has sent this man, although he has taken an orgy."

"God has such gladness every time he sees from heaven that a sinner is praying to Him with all his heart, as a mother has when she sees the first smile on her baby's face."

"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?"

"God is the pain of the fear of death."

"God knows what is in me in place of me."

"God Lord, only a moment of bliss, isn't such a moment sufficient for the whole of a man's life?"

"God preserve you, my dear boy, from ever asking forgiveness for a fault from a woman you love. From one you love especially, however greatly you may have been in fault. For a woman--devil only knows what to make of a woman: I know something about them, anyway. But try acknowledging you are in fault to a woman. Say, I am sorry, forgive me, and a shower of reproaches will follow! Nothing will make her forgive you simply and directly, she'll humble you to the dust, bring forward things that have never happened, recall everything, forget nothing, add something of her own, and only then forgive you. And even the best, the best of them do it. She'll scrape up all the scrapings and load them on your head. They are ready to flay you alive, I tell you, everyone of them, all these angels without whom we cannot live! I tell you plainly and openly, dear boy, every decent man ought to be under some woman's thumb. That's my conviction--not conviction, but feeling. A man ought to be magnanimous, and it's no disgrace to a man! No disgrace to a hero, not even a Caesar! But don't ever beg her pardon all the same for anything."

"Good people are not waiting to improve one of them even improve it, they love their own service of those in need of this service."

"Good-bye, Prince, for the first time saw a man!"

"Grandmother was always regretting the old days-she was younger in old days, and the sun was warmer in old days, and cream did not turn so sour in old days-it was always the old days!"

"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?"

"Grown-up people do not know that a child can give exceedingly good advice even in the most difficult case."