The Brothers Karamazov: Bicentennial Edition

by Fyodor Dostoevsky

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.’

You see, I close my eyes and think: if everyone has faith, where does it come from? And then they say that it all came originally from fear of the awesome phenomena of nature, and that there is nothing to it at all.

Though I believed only when I was a little child, mechanically, without thinking about anything … How, how can it be proved?

“By the experience of active love. Try to love your neighbors actively and tirelessly. The more you succeed in loving, the more you’ll be convinced of the existence of God and the immortality of your soul. And if you reach complete selflessness in the love of your neighbor, then undoubtedly you will believe, and no doubt will even be able to enter your soul. This has been tested. It is certain.”

if there’s anything that would immediately cool my ‘active’ love for mankind, that one thing is ingratitude.

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

Whereas active love is labor and perseverance, and for some people, perhaps, a whole science.

She had noticed long ago, from their first visit, that Alyosha was shy of her and tried not to look at her, and she found this terribly amusing.

The latter answered at last, not with polite condescension, as Alyosha had feared the day before, but modestly and reservedly, with apparent consideration and, evidently, without the least ulterior motive.

Compromise between the state and the Church on such questions as courts, for example, is, in my opinion, in its perfect and pure essence, impossible.

And it withholds above all because the judgment of the Church is the only judgment that contains the truth, and for that reason it cannot, essentially and morally, be combined with any other judgment, even in a temporary compromise.

A socialist Christian is more dangerous than a socialist atheist.’

It was obvious that he had considered this bow beforehand and conceived it sincerely, believing it his duty to express thereby his respect and goodwill.

There is no virtue if there is no immortality.”

“But can it be resolved in myself? Resolved in a positive way?” Ivan Fyodorovich continued asking strangely, still looking at the elder with a certain inexplicable smile.

This action, as well as the whole preceding conversation with the elder, so unexpected from Ivan Fyodorovich, somehow struck everyone with its mysteriousness and even a certain solemnity, so that for a moment they all fell silent, and Alyosha looked almost frightened.

he himself seemed to be waiting for something, and watched intently, as if still trying to understand something, as if still not comprehending something.

“A brazen face and a Karamazov conscience.”

But I have no doubt of you, that is why I am sending you.

Here is a commandment for you: seek happiness in sorrow.

The bow struck Alyosha terribly; he believed blindly that there was a secret meaning in it. Secret, and perhaps also horrible.

Rakitin evidently wanted to speak his mind.

All the while being a noble and disinterested man—make note of that. Such people are the most fatal of all!

And how is it that Ivan has seduced you all, that you’re all so in awe of him? He’s laughing at you: he’s sitting there in clover, relishing at your expense!”

Mankind will find strength in itself to live for virtue, even without believing in the immortality of the soul! Find it in the love of liberty, equality, fraternity …”

There was no vodka at all.

in Russia?! Impossible! There's no way this novel can be taken as not fiction now

Rakitin sniffed it all out, unable to restrain himself, peeking for that purpose into the Superior’s kitchen, where he also had his connections. He had connections everywhere and made spies everywhere. He had a restless and covetous heart. He was fully aware of his considerable abilities, but in his conceit he nervously exaggerated them.

He wanted to revenge himself on all of them for his own nasty tricks.

His innermost feeling at that moment might be expressed in the following words: “There is no way to rehabilitate myself now, so why don’t I just spit all over them without any shame; tell them, ‘You’ll never make me ashamed, and that’s that!’”

He did not quite know what he was going to do, but he knew that he was no longer in control of himself—a little push, and in no time he would reach the utmost limits of some abomination—only an abomination, by the way, never anything criminal, never an escapade punishable by law. In that respect he always managed to restrain himself, and even amazed himself in some cases.

our monastery never meant anything special in his life, and he had never shed any bitter tears because of it. But he was so carried away by his own sham tears that for a moment he almost believed himself; he even as much as wept from self-pity; but at the same moment he felt it was time to rein himself in.

Besides that, Grigory knew that he had an unquestionable influence over his master. He felt it, and he was right.

Outwardly Grigory was a cold and pompous man, taciturn, delivering himself of weighty, unfrivolous words.

She felt that her husband valued her silence and took it as a sign of her intelligence.

Assiduous reading in “the divine” certainly added to the pomposity of his physiognomy.

Alyosha was sure that no one in the whole world would ever want to offend him, and not only would not want to but even would not be able to.

Whoever steps on the lowest step will surely step on the highest.” “So one had better not step at all.” “Not if one can help it.” “Can you?” “It seems not.”

but destiny will be fulfilled, the worthy man will take his place, and the unworthy one will disappear down his back lane—his dirty back lane, his beloved, his befitting back lane, and there, in filth and stench, will perish of his own free will, and revel in it.

As a child he was fond of hanging cats and then burying them with ceremony. He would put on a sheet, which served him as a vestment, chant, and swing something over the dead cat as if it were a censer. It was all done on the sly, in great secrecy.

You think you’re a human being?” he would suddenly address Smerdyakov directly. “You are not a human being, you were begotten of bathhouse slime, that’s who you are …” Smerdyakov, it turned out later, never could forgive him these words.

“What is it?” asked Grigory, looking at him sternly from under his spectacles. “Nothing, sir. The Lord God created light on the first day, and the sun, moon, and stars on the fourth day.2 Where did the light shine from on the first day?” Grigory was dumbfounded.

A week later, as it happened, they discovered for the first time that he had the falling sickness, which never left him for the rest of his life.3 Having learned of it, Fyodor Pavlovich seemed to change his view of the boy.

Fyodor Pavlovich strictly forbade Grigory any corporal punishment of the boy, and began allowing him upstairs. He also forbade teaching him anything at all for the time being.

he would hold a piece up to the light on his fork, and study it as if through a microscope, sometimes taking a long time to decide, and, finally, would decide to send it into his mouth.

Fyodor Pavlovich, when he heard about this new quality in Smerdyakov, immediately decided that he should be a cook, and sent him to Moscow for training. He spent a few years in training, and came back much changed in appearance. He suddenly became somehow remarkably old, with wrinkles even quite disproportionate to his age, turned sallow, and began to look like a eunuch.

“I wish you’d marry somebody, do you want me to get you married … ?” But Smerdyakov only turned pale with vexation at such talk, without making any reply. Fyodor

Smerdyakov, who was standing at the door, suddenly grinned. Even before then, Smerdyakov was quite often allowed to stand by the table—that is, at the end of dinner. And since Ivan Fyodorovich arrived in our town, he began appearing at dinner almost every day.

“Wait a little with your ‘scoundrel,’ Grigory Vasilievich, sir,” Smerdyakov retorted quietly and with restraint, “and you’d better consider for yourself, that if I am taken captive by the tormentors of Christian people, and they demand that I curse God’s name and renounce my holy baptism, then I’m quite authorized to do it by my own reason, because there wouldn’t be any sin in it.”

The Lord God can’t take some Tartar by the neck and claim that he, too, was a Christian? That would mean that the Lord Almighty was saying a real untruth. And how can the Almighty Lord of heaven and earth tell a lie, even if it’s only one word, sir?”

Well, then, Grigory Vasilievich, if I’m an unbeliever, and you are such a believer that you’re even constantly scolding me, then you, sir, try telling this mountain to go down, not into the sea (because it’s far from here to the sea, sir), but even just into our stinking stream, the one beyond our garden, and you’ll see for yourself right then that nothing will go down, sir, but everything will remain in its former order and security, no matter how much you shout, sir. And that means that you, too, Grigory Vasilievich, do not believe in a proper manner, and merely scold others for it in every possible way.