The Brothers Karamazov: A Novel in Four Parts With Epilogue

by Fyodor Dostoevsky

Alyosha almost always noticed that many people, nearly everyone, who came to the elder for the first time for a private talk, would enter in fear and anxiety and almost always come out bright and joyful, and that the gloomiest face would be transformed into a happy one.

His heart especially throbbed and he became radiant when the elder came out to the crowd of simple pilgrims waiting for him at the gates of the hermitage, who flocked from all over Russia purposely to see the elder and receive his blessing.

“Though with us there is sin, unrighteousness, and temptation, all the same, there is on earth, in such and such a place, somewhere, someone holy and exalted; he has the truth; he knows the truth; so the truth does not die on earth, and therefore someday it will come to us and will reign over all the earth, as has been promised.”

The conviction that the elder, after death, would bring remarkable glory to the monastery, reigned in Alyosha’s soul perhaps even more strongly than in anyone else’s in the monastery.

he was waiting with some sort of anxious puzzlement, which he himself did not understand, waiting for his brother to move closer to him.

“Who made me a divider over them?”11

None of his companions said anything to him, so there was no point in his being embarrassed; which, when he noticed it, made him even more embarrassed.

A 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.

that he has picked on a word and made a mountain out of a pea—

For people are created for happiness, and he who is completely happy can at once be deemed worthy of saying to himself: ‘I have fulfilled God’s commandment on this earth.’ All the righteous, all the saints, all the holy martyrs were happy.”

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

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.

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.

according to the Russian understanding and hope, it is not the Church that needs to be transformed into the state, as from a lower to a higher type, but, on the contrary, the state should end by being accounted worthy of becoming only the Church alone, and nothing else but that. And so be it, so be it!”

if there is and has been any love on earth up to now, it has come not from natural law but solely from people’s belief in their immortality.

seek happiness in sorrow.

You are a Karamazov yourself, a full-fledged Karamazov—

he read persistently over many years, understanding almost nothing at all of it, but perhaps precisely for that reason prizing and loving it all the more.

I’m sometimes very impatient, and sometimes I don’t see things.

Respecting him so much, you behaved as if you had ceased to be compassionate, because you demanded too much of him—and who did this? He who loved him more than himself! Respecting him less, you would have demanded less of him, and that would be closer to love, for his burden would be lighter.

turmoil, confusion, and unhappiness—these are the present lot of mankind, after you suffered so much for their freedom!

for the need for universal union is the third and last torment of men.

I knew one “fighter for an idea” who told me himself that when he was deprived of tobacco in prison, he was so tormented by this deprivation that he almost went and betrayed his “idea,” just so that they would give him some tobacco. And such a man says: “I am going to fight for mankind.” Well, how far will such a man get, and what is he good for? Perhaps some quick action, but he will not endure for long.

YOUNG MAN, DO not forget to pray. Each time you pray, if you do so sincerely, there will be the flash of a new feeling in it, and a new thought as well, one you did not know before, which will give you fresh courage; and you will understand that prayer is education.

REMEMBER ESPECIALLY THAT you cannot be the judge of anyone.11 For there can be no judge of a criminal on earth until the judge knows that he, too, is a criminal, exactly the same as the one who stands before him, and that he is perhaps most guilty of all for the crime of the one standing before him.

Jealous men forgive sooner than anyone else, and all women know it.

Of course, the reconciliation will only last an hour, because even if the rival has indeed disappeared, tomorrow he will invent another, a new one, and become jealous of this new one.

what is the good of a love that must constantly be spied on, and what is the worth of a love that needs to be guarded so intensely?

his mother threw herself into studying all the subjects with him,

His chief goal in life was to be a progressive man.

Schiller,

“Do not, do not believe yourself

(Luke 2:29),