The Idiot

by Fyodor Dostoevsky

But it is a fact that I do not care to be among grown-up people and much prefer the society of children.

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?

One of the vilest and most hateful things connected with money is that it can buy even talent;

how easily the heart accustoms itself to comforts, and how difficult it is to tear one's self away from luxuries which have become habitual and, little by little, indispensable.

Nastasia did not reject all this, she even loved her comforts and luxuries, but, strangely enough, never became, in the least degree, dependent upon them, and always gave the impression that she could do just as well without them. In fact, she went so far as to inform Totski on several occasions that such was the case, which the latter gentleman considered a very unpleasant communication indeed.

it is a well-known fact that only stupid people tell 'the truth.' Added to this, I am a spiteful man, just because I am not clever.

Compassion is the chief law of human existence.

Yes, nature is full of mockery! Why"—he continued with sudden warmth—"does she create the choicest beings only to mock at them? The only human being who is recognized as perfect, when nature showed him to mankind, was given the mission to say things which have caused the shedding of so much blood that it would have drowned mankind if it had all been shed

but if you have a wart on your forehead or nose, you imagine that all the world is looking at it, and that people would make fun of you because of it, even if you had discovered America!

In fact, the truer a thing is the less true it sounds."

Ask them, ask any one of them, or all of them, what they mean by happiness! Oh, you may be perfectly sure that if Columbus was happy, it was not after he had discovered America, but when he was discovering it!

The important thing is life—life and nothing else! What is any 'discovery' whatever compared with the incessant, eternal discovery of life?

They say that meekness is a great power.

"Do you know there is a limit of ignominy, beyond which man's consciousness of shame cannot go, and after which begins satisfaction in shame?

We degrade God when we attribute our own ideas to Him, out of annoyance that we cannot fathom His ways.

"If I had had the power to prevent my own birth I should certainly never have consented to accept existence under such ridiculous conditions.

You have no gentleness, but only justice—so you are unjust."

really, there are two minds—the kind that matters, and the kind that doesn't matter.

when one tells a lie, if one insists on something unusual and eccentric—something too 'out of the way'' for anything, you know—the more impossible the thing is, the more plausible does the lie sound.

often ask myself—is it possible to love everybody? Indeed it is not; it is not in nature. Abstract love of humanity is nearly always love of self.

In my opinion, the duty of the novelist is to seek out points of interest

and instruction even in the characters of commonplace people.

The "impudence of ignorance," if I may use the expression, is developed to a wonderful extent in such cases;—unlikely as it appears, it is met with at every turn.

Nature loves and favours such people. Ptitsin will certainly have his reward, not three houses, but four, precisely because from childhood up he had realized that he would never be a Rothschild. That will be the limit of Ptitsin's fortune, and, come what may, he will never have more than four houses.

I hate you, Gavrila Ardalionovitch, solely (this may seem curious to you, but I repeat)—solely because you are the type, and incarnation, and head, and crown of the most impudent, the most self-satisfied, the most vulgar and detestable form of commonplaceness. You are ordinary of the ordinary; you have no chance of ever fathering the pettiest idea of your own. And yet you are as jealous and conceited as you can possibly be; you consider yourself a great genius; of this you are persuaded, although there are dark moments of doubt and rage, when even this fact seems uncertain. There are spots of darkness on your horizon, though they will disappear when you become completely stupid.

We must never forget that human motives are generally far more complicated than we are apt to suppose, and that we can very rarely accurately describe the motives of another.

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

Oh! what does grief matter—what does misfortune matter, if one knows how to be happy? Do you know, I cannot understand how anyone can pass by a green tree, and not feel happy only to look at it! How anyone can talk to a man and not feel happy in loving him! Oh, it is my own fault that I cannot express myself well enough! But there are lovely things at every step I take—things which even the most miserable man must recognize as beautiful. Look at a little child—look at God's day-dawn—look at the grass growing—look at the eyes that love you, as they gaze back into your eyes!"