The Idiot

by Fyodor Dostoevsky

believe that to execute a man for murder is to punish him immeasurably more dreadfully than is equivalent to his crime. A murder by sentence is far more dreadful than a murder committed by a criminal.

I am sure people make a great mistake in sorting each other into groups, by appearances; but I am boring you, I see, you—"

and then it struck me that life may be grand enough even in a prison."

'What should I do if I were not to die now? What if I were to return to life again? What an eternity of days, and all mine! How I should grudge and count

How well even little children understand that their parents conceal things from them, because they consider them too young to understand!

Later, when everyone—even Schneider—was angry with me for hiding nothing from the children, I pointed out how foolish it was, for they always knew things, only they learnt them in a way that soiled their minds but not so from me.

I am often called an idiot, and at one time I certainly was so ill that I was nearly as bad as an idiot; but I am not an idiot now. How can I possibly be so when I know myself that I am considered one?

A fool with a heart and no brains is just as unhappy as a fool with brains and no heart. I am one and you are the other, and therefore both of us suffer, both of us are unhappy."

What is a terrible disgrace to a woman, does not disgrace a man, at least not in the same way. Perhaps public opinion is wrong in condemning one sex, and excusing the other.

As a kind of compensation I am allowed to tell the truth, for it is a well-known fact that only stupid people tell 'the truth.'

are there not far more thieves than honest men in this world?

"I said before that I shall esteem your consent to be my wife as a great honour to myself, and shall consider that it is you who will honour me, not I you, by our marriage.

Goodbye, prince. I have seen a man for the first time in my life.

anyone inclined to mockery might have found something to smile at in his appearance. But what is there that people will not smile at?

The essence of religious feeling has nothing to do with reason, or atheism, or crime, or acts of any kind—it has nothing to do with these things—and never had. There is something besides all this, something which the arguments of the atheists can never touch.

Compassion is the chief law of human existence.

"There is not one of them all who is worthy of these words of yours," continued Aglaya. "Not one of them is worth your little finger, not one of them has heart or head to compare with yours! You are more honest than all, and better, nobler, kinder, wiser than all. There are some here who are unworthy to bend and pick up the handkerchief you have just dropped. Why do you humiliate yourself like this, and place yourself lower than these people? Why do you debase yourself before them? Why have you no pride?"

"There are people who find satisfaction in their own touchy feelings, especially when they have just taken the deepest offence; at such moments they feel that they would rather be offended than not. These easily-ignited natures, if they are wise, are always full of remorse afterwards, when they reflect that they have been ten times as angry as they need have been.

Everything knew its path and loved it, went forth with a song and returned with a song; only he knew nothing, understood nothing, neither men nor words, nor any of nature's voices; he was a stranger and an outcast.

Abstract love of humanity is nearly always love of self.

There is nothing so annoying as to be fairly rich, of a fairly good family, pleasing presence, average education, to be "not stupid," kind-hearted, and yet to have no talent at all, no originality, not a single idea of one's own—to be, in fact, "just like everyone else."

To a commonplace man of limited intellect, for instance, nothing is simpler than to imagine himself an original character, and to revel in that belief without the slightest misgiving.

"What children we are still, Colia!" he cried at last, enthusiastically,—"and how delightful it is that we can be children still!"

"No—I asked you this—answer this! Do you intend to ask for my hand, or not?" "Yes—I do ask for it!" said the prince, more dead than alive now.

Oh whats he thinking honestly

Do you know, I sometimes think it is a good thing to be odd. We can forgive one another more easily, and be more humble. No one can begin by being perfect—there is much one cannot understand in life at first. In order to attain to perfection, one must begin by failing to understand much.

Aglaya will understand—I am assured she will." "No, prince, she will not. Aglaya loved like a woman, like a human being, not like an abstract spirit.