The Brothers Karamazov

by Fyodor Dostoevsky

He completely abandoned the child of his marriage with Adelaïda Ivanovna, not from malice, nor because of his matrimonial grievances, but simply because he forgot him.

The genuine realist, if he is an unbeliever, will always find strength and ability to disbelieve in the miraculous, and if he is confronted with a miracle as an irrefutable fact he would rather disbelieve his own senses than admit the fact. Even if he admits it, he admits it as a fact of nature till then unrecognized by him. Faith does not, in the realist, spring from the miracle but the miracle from faith.

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.

He was fond of the Book of Job, and had somehow got hold of a copy of the sayings and sermons of “the God-fearing Father Isaac the Syrian,” which he read persistently for years together, understanding very little of it, but perhaps prizing and loving it the more for that.

The old man persisted. He had reached that state of drunkenness when the drunkard who has till then been inoffensive tries to pick a quarrel and to assert himself.

My rule has been that you can always find something devilishly interesting in every woman that you wouldn’t find in any other.

“No; perhaps you will love her for ever. But perhaps you won’t always be happy with her.”

Some even had those high boots with creases round the ankles, such as little boys spoilt by rich fathers love to wear.

And when he had poured out his heart, he felt ashamed at having shown me his inmost soul like that. So he began to hate me at once.

You know, Lise, it’s awfully hard for a man who has been injured, when other people look at him as though they were his benefactors.... I’ve heard that; Father Zossima told me so.

I believe it’s always best to get to know people just before leaving them.

And I advise you never to think about it either, my dear Alyosha, especially about God, whether He exists or not. All such questions are utterly inappropriate for a mind created with an idea of only three dimensions.

Stupidity is brief and artless, while intelligence wriggles and hides itself. Intelligence is a knave, but stupidity is honest and straightforward.

One can love one’s neighbors in the abstract, or even at a distance, but at close quarters it’s almost impossible.

nature is beautiful and sinless, and we, only we, are sinful and foolish, and we don’t understand that life is heaven, for we have only to understand that and it will at once be fulfilled in all its beauty, we shall embrace each other and weep.”

“Heaven,” he went on, “lies hidden within all of us—here it lies hidden in me now, and if I will it, it will be revealed to me to-morrow and for all time.”

To transform the world, to recreate it afresh, men must turn into another path psychologically. Until you have become really, in actual fact, a brother to every one, brotherhood will not come to pass.

But in some cases it is really more creditable to be carried away by an emotion, however unreasonable, which springs from a great love, than to be unmoved. And this is even truer in youth, for a young man who is always sensible is to be suspected and is of little worth—that’s my opinion!

“If you know too much, you’ll get old too soon.”

Païssy without his noticing it. Father Païssy

So she simply forgot this “dreadful affair,” and it was only as she was getting into bed, that, suddenly recalling “how near death she had been,” she exclaimed: “Ah, it is awful, awful!” But she fell at once into a sound, sweet sleep.

I would not, however, have dwelt on such trivial and irrelevant details, if this eccentric meeting of the young official with the by no means elderly widow had not subsequently turned out to be the foundation of the whole career of that practical and precise young man. His story is remembered to this day with amazement in our town, and I shall perhaps have something to say about it, when I have finished my long history of the Brothers Karamazov.

The first room his guests entered was a well-fitted billiard-room, with pictures of English race-horses, in black frames on the walls, an essential decoration, as we all know, for a bachelor’s billiard-room.

Mihail Makarovitch was by no means very efficient in his work, though he performed his duties no worse than many others. To speak plainly, he was a man of rather narrow education. His understanding of the limits of his administrative power could not always be relied upon. It was not so much that he failed to grasp certain reforms enacted during the present reign, as that he made conspicuous blunders in his interpretation of them.

If dogs could reason and criticize us they’d be sure to find just as much that would be funny to them, if not far more, in the social relations of men, their masters—far more, indeed. I repeat that, because I am convinced that there is far more foolishness among us. That’s Rakitin’s idea—a remarkable idea. I am a Socialist, Smurov.”

The present paragraph in the paper Gossip was under the heading, “The Karamazov Case at Skotoprigonyevsk.” (That, alas! was the name of our little town. I had hitherto kept it concealed.)

And, besides, who isn’t suffering from aberration nowadays?—you, I, all of us are in a state of aberration, and there are ever so many examples of it: a man sits singing a song, suddenly something annoys him, he takes a pistol and shoots the first person he comes across, and no one blames him for it. I read that lately, and all the doctors confirm it. The doctors are always confirming; they confirm anything.

I hasten to emphasize the fact that I am far from esteeming myself capable of reporting all that took place at the trial in full detail, or even in the actual order of events. I imagine that to mention everything with full explanation would fill a volume, even a very large one. And so I trust I may not be reproached, for confining myself to what struck me. I may have selected as of most interest what was of secondary importance, and may have omitted the most prominent and essential details. But I see I shall do better not to apologize. I will do my best and the reader will see for himself that I have done all I can.

“What an idea, bury him by an unholy stone, as though he had hanged himself!” the old landlady said sternly.

It was an old and rather poor church; many of the ikons were without settings; but such churches are the best for praying in.

You must know that there is nothing higher and stronger and more wholesome and good for life in the future than some good memory, especially a memory of childhood, of home. People talk to you a great deal about your education, but some good, sacred memory, preserved from childhood, is perhaps the best education. If a man carries many such memories with him into life, he is safe to the end of his days, and if one has only one good memory left in one’s heart, even that may sometime be the means of saving us.