The Brothers Karamazov: A Novel in Four Parts With Epilogue

by Fyodor Dostoevsky

In most cases, people, even wicked people, are far more naive and simple-hearted than one generally assumes. And so are we.

“Those innocent eyes cut my soul like a razor,”

Such memories can be remembered (everyone knows this) even from an earlier age, even from the age of two, but they only emerge throughout one’s life as specks of light, as it were, against the darkness, as a corner torn from a huge picture, which has all faded and disappeared except for that little corner.

But he did love people; he lived all his life, it seemed, with complete faith in people, and yet no one ever considered him either naive or a simpleton.

There was something in him that told one, that convinced one (and it was so all his life afterwards) that he did not want to be a judge of men, that he would not take judgment upon himself and would not condemn anyone for anything. It seemed, even, that he accepted everything without the least condemnation, though often with deep sadness.