The Brothers Karamazov: A Novel in Four Parts With Epilogue

by Fyodor Dostoevsky

Fyodor Pavlovich could not show him where he had buried his second wife, because he had never visited her grave after her coffin was covered with earth, and it was all so long ago that he just could not recall where they had buried her

Wild

In the realist, faith is not born from miracles, but miracles from faith.

the sacrifice of life is, perhaps, the easiest of all sacrifices in many cases, while to sacrifice, for example, five or six years of their ebulliently youthful life to hard, difficult studies, to learning, in order to increase tenfold their strength to serve the very truth and the very deed that they loved and set out to accomplish—such sacrifice is quite often almost beyond the strength of many of them.

man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point where he does not discern any truth either in himself or anywhere around him, and thus falls into disrespect towards himself and others. Not respecting anyone, he ceases to love, and having no love, he gives himself up to passions and coarse pleasures, in order to occupy and amuse himself, and in his vices reaches complete bestiality, and it all comes from lying continually to others and to himself.

With love everything is bought, everything is saved.

the more I love mankind in general, the less I love people in particular, that is, individually, as separate persons.

often went so far as to think passionately of serving mankind, and, it may be, would really have gone to the cross for people if it were somehow suddenly necessary, and yet I am incapable of living in the same room with anyone even for two days, this I know from experience. As soon as someone is there, close to me, his personality oppresses my self-esteem and restricts my freedom. In twenty-four hours I can begin to hate even the best of men: one because he takes too long eating his dinner, another because he has a cold and keeps blowing his nose. I become the enemy of people the moment they touch me,’ he said. ‘On the other hand, it has always happened that the more I hate people individually, the more ardent becomes my love for humanity as a whole.’”

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 onstage, and everyone is looking on and praising. Whereas active love is labor and perseverance, and for some people, perhaps, a whole science.

Because when I fall into the abyss, I go straight into it, head down and heels up, and I’m even pleased that I’m falling in just such a humiliating position, and for me I find it beautiful.

And I will not weep from despair, but simply because I will be happy in my shed tears. I will be drunk with my own tenderness. Sticky spring leaves, the blue sky—I love them, that’s all! Such things you love not with your mind, not with logic, but with your insides, your guts, you love your first young strength

think that everyone should love life before everything else in the world.” “Love life more than its meaning?” “Certainly, love it before logic,

As for me, I long ago decided not to think about whether man created God or God created man.

Indeed, people speak sometimes about the ‘beastly’ cruelty of man, but that is terribly unjust and offensive to beasts, no beast could ever be so cruel as a man, so artfully, so artistically cruel.

It’s not that I don’t accept God, Alyosha, I just most respectfully return him the ticket.”

quiet smile of infinite compassion. The sun of love shines in his heart, rays of Light, Enlightenment, and Power stream from his eyes and, pouring over the people, shake their hearts with responding love.

There is nothing more seductive for man than the freedom of his conscience, but there is nothing more tormenting either.

Love all of God’s creation, both the whole of it and every grain of sand. Love every leaf, every ray of God’s light. Love animals, love plants, love each thing. If you love each thing, you will perceive the mystery of God in things. Once you have perceived it, you will begin tirelessly to perceive more and more of it every day. And you will come at last to love the whole world with an entire, universal love.

love is a teacher, but one must know how to acquire it, for it is difficult to acquire, it is dearly bought, by long work over a long time, for one ought to love not for a chance moment but for all time.

I ask myself: “What is hell?” And I answer thus: “The suffering of being no longer able to love.”

Fragments of thoughts flashed in his soul, catching fire like little stars and dying out at once to give way to others, yet there reigned in his soul something whole, firm, assuaging, and he was conscious of it himself. He would ardently begin a prayer, he wanted so much to give thanks and to love … But, having begun the prayer, he would suddenly pass to something else, lapse into thought, and forget both his prayer and what had interrupted it.

is possible to have a lofty heart, to love purely, to be full of self-sacrifice, and at the same time to hide under tables, to bribe the meanest people, and live with the nastiest filth of spying and eavesdropping.

“Come what may, whatever happens now, I’ll give the whole world for one minute,”

“I will now open and pour out my whole soul

If dogs could reason and criticize, they would undoubtedly find as much that is funny to them in the social relations of humans, their masters—if not far more; I repeat, because I am convinced of it, that there is far more foolishness in us.

there are people who feel deeply but are somehow beaten down. Their buffoonery is something like a spiteful irony against those to whom they dare not speak the truth directly because of a long-standing, humiliating timidity before them.

Bravo, German! Though the Germans still ought to be strangled. They may be good at science there, but they still ought to be strangled

You see, my dear, I’ll tell you frankly and simply: every decent man ought to be under the heel of some woman at least.

“Not for a single moment do I take you for the real truth,” Ivan cried, somehow even furiously. “You are a lie, you are my illness, you are a ghost. Only I don’t know how to destroy you, and I see I’ll have to suffer through it for a while. You are my hallucination. You are the embodiment of myself, but of just one side of me … of my thoughts and feelings, but only the most vile and stupid of them.

If everything on earth were sensible, nothing would happen.

“Ilyushechka told me, Ilyushechka,” he explained at once to Alyosha, “he was lying there one night, and I was sitting by him, and he suddenly told me: ‘Papa, when they put the dirt on my grave, crumble a crust of bread on it so the sparrows will come, and I’ll hear that they’ve come and be glad that I’m not lying alone.’”

Right now I shall be with my two brothers for a while, one of whom is going into exile, and the other is lying near death. But soon I shall leave this town, perhaps for a very long time. And so we shall part, gentlemen. Let us agree here, by Ilyusha’s stone, that we will never forget—first, Ilyushechka, and second, one another. And whatever may happen to us later in life, even if we do not meet for twenty years afterwards, let us always remember how we buried the poor boy, whom we once threw stones at—remember, there by the little bridge?—and whom afterwards we all came to love so much. He was a nice boy, a kind and brave boy, he felt honor and his father’s bitter offense made him rise up. And so, first of all, let us remember him, gentlemen, all our lives. And

must know that there is nothing higher, or stronger, or sounder, or more useful afterwards in life, than some good memory, especially a memory from childhood, from the parental home. You hear a lot said about your education, yet some such beautiful, sacred memory, preserved from childhood, is perhaps the best education. If a man stores up many such memories to take into life, then he is saved for his whole life. And even if only one good memory remains with us in our hearts, that alone may serve some day for our salvation.

“Ah, children, ah, dear friends, do not be afraid of life! How good life is when you do something good and rightful!”