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Oh, my friend, marriage is the moral death of every proud soul, of all independence.
Il y a là dedans quelque chose d'aveugle et de louche."
There is something in there that is dark and shady.
'an atheist at once ceases to be a Russian'?
Roman Catholicism was not Christianity; you asserted that Rome proclaimed Christ subject to the third temptation of the devil.
Christ without an earthly kingdom cannot hold his ground upon earth, Catholicism by so doing proclaimed Antichrist and ruined the whole Western world.
"not a single nation has ever been founded on principles of science or reason.
Socialism is from its very nature bound to be atheism,
Science and reason have, from the beginning of time, played a secondary and subordinate part in the life of nations; so it will be till the end of time.
There never has been a nation without a religion, that is, without an idea of good and evil. Every people has its own conception of good and evil, and its own good and evil.
Is there then no concept of a universal truth, a common morality? If all humans are created in the image and likeness of God, who is all good, then our natural tendency is to define good based on those virtues of Him we find in ourselves.
Reason has never had the power to define good and evil, or even to distinguish between good and evil,
Would Plato agree?
The very fact that you reduce God to a simple attribute of nationality..."
do you believe in God, yourself?" "I believe in Russia.... I believe in her orthodoxy.... I believe in the body of Christ.... I believe that the new advent will take place in Russia.... I believe..." Shatov muttered frantically. "And in God? In God?" "I... I will believe in God."
"I believe in the Body of Christ" meaning the Christian people. He does not yet believe in God, but he wants to because he thinks a belief in God is necessary for the future success of Russia.
"Anyone is worthy of an umbrella."
What a profoundly insightful moral statement hidden as something trivial
"What ought I to have done?" "Not have challenged him." "Accept another blow in the face?" "Yes, accept another."
The "Christian" thing to do would indeed be to "Turn the other cheek," and accept insult after insult. Since Nikolay has in the past stated that one ceases to be Russian when one ceases to be Orthodox, is he still a Russian?
"Because reading books and having them bound are two different stages of development, and there's a vast gulf between them. To begin with, a man gradually gets used to reading, in the course of ages of course, but takes no care of his books and throws them about, not thinking them worth attention. But binding implies respect for books, and implies that not only he has grown fond of reading, but that he looks upon it as something of value. That period has not been reached anywhere in Russia yet. In Europe books have been bound for a long while."
Strange statement for one of the great Russian authors to make
No, better simply the high road, better simply to set off for it, and walk along it and to think of nothing so long as he could put off thinking. The high road is something very very long, of which one cannot see the end—like human life, like human dreams. There is an idea in the open road, but what sort of idea is there in travelling with posting tickets? Posting tickets mean an end to ideas. Vive la grande route and then as God wills.
What a romantic
When asked what was the object of so many murders and scandals and dastardly outrages, he answered with feverish haste that "it was with the idea of systematically undermining the foundations, systematically destroying society and all principles; with the idea of nonplussing every one and making hay of everything, and then, when society was tottering, sick and out of joint, cynical and sceptical though filled with an intense eagerness for self-preservation and for some guiding idea, suddenly to seize it in their hands, raising the standard of revolt and relying on a complete network of
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