Demons

by Fyodor Dostoevsky

Of course, he cried a little, talked a great deal and, well, fell into frequent and glaring self-contradictions, made a pun quite by chance and was happy with it, then suffered a slight attack of cholerine — in a word, everything went as it should.

‘Full freedom will come only when it makes no difference whether to live or not to live. That’s the goal for everyone.’

In the stone there’s no pain, but in the fear of the stone there is pain. God is the pain of the fear of death. Whoever conquers pain and fear will himself become God.

Everyone thinks and then immediately thinks about something else. I can’t think about something else, my whole life I’ve thought about one thing. I’ve been tormented by God my whole life,’

‘Evidently it’s true that the entire second half of a man’s life is usually composed solely of the habits accumulated during the first half.’

Bear your burden. Otherwise there’s no merit.’

It’s really impossible to live one’s entire life on the heights of one’s own fantasy.

‘Listen, Stavrogin: to level mountains is a good idea, and isn’t ridiculous. I’m for Shigalyov! There’s no need for education, enough of science! Even without science there’s enough material for a thousand years, but obedience has to be established. There’s only one thing lacking in the world: obedience. The thirst for education is nothing but an aristocratic thirst. No sooner do we have the family or love than the desire for private property arises. We will kill desire: we will foster drunkenness, gossip, denunciation; we will foster unheard-of depravity; we will stifle every genius in its infancy. Everything reduced to a common denominator, complete equality. “We have learned a trade, and we are honest people, we need nothing else” —that’s the answer given recently by the English workers. Only what’s essential is essential — that’s the motto of the planet from now on. But a shaking up is necessary too: we, the rulers, will take care of that. The slaves ought to have rulers. Complete obedience, a complete lack of individuality, but once every thirty years along comes Shigalyov to shake things up and everyone suddenly begins to devour each other, up to a certain point, only to avoid boredom. Boredom is an aristocratic feeling; in Shigalyovism there will be no desires. Desire and suffering will be for us, and for the slaves — Shigalyovism.’

‘at that moment I thought: which of us is more loathsome? Is it he, who embraced me in order to humiliate me then and there, or is it I, who despised him and his cheek and proceeded to kiss it, even though I could have turned away… ugh!’

‘The idea is great, but those who profess it are not always giants, et brisons-là, mon cher,’

Yes… Wait, do you ever have moments of eternal harmony, Shatov?’ ‘You know, Kirillov, you must put a stop to not sleeping at night.’ Kirillov snapped out of it and, strangely enough, began to speak much more coherently than he usually did; it was evident that he had already formulated all of this long before, and had perhaps written it down. ‘There are seconds — they come only five or six at a time — when you suddenly feel the presence of an eternal harmony that has been fully attained. This is not something earthly. I’m not saying that it’s heavenly, but that man in his earthly form cannot endure it. He must change physically or else die. It is a clear and unambiguous feeling. It’s as if you suddenly have a sense of nature as a whole, and you suddenly say: yes, this is true. God, when he was creating the world, said at the end of each day of creation: “Yes, this is true, this is good.” 4 This… this is not deep emotion, but is simply joy. You don’t forgive anything, because there’s no longer anything to forgive. You don’t really love — oh, this is higher than love! If it lasts longer than five seconds, your soul can’t endure it and must disappear. In these five seconds I live an entire lifetime, and for them I will give my entire life, because it’s worth it. In order to endure ten seconds, one must change physically. I think that man should stop giving birth. Why have children, why have evolution if the goal has been attained? In the Gospels it is said that in the resurrec...

‘The complete atheist stands on the next-to-last highest rung leading to the fullest and most complete faith (he may take that step, or he may not), but the indifferent man has no faith at all, except an ugly fear.’