The Complete Novels

by Fyodor Dostoevsky

“But as if that is enough!” cried Evgenie, indignantly. “As if it is enough simply to say: ‘I know I am very guilty!’ You are to blame, and yet you persevere in evil-doing.

You are talking nonsense, my friend.

“No, prince, she will not. Aglaya loved like a woman, like a human being, not like an abstract spirit. Do you know what, my poor prince? The most probable explanation of the matter is that you never loved either the one or the other in reality.”

Lebedeff really had been busy for some little while; but, as usual, his plans had become too complex to succeed, through sheer excess of ardour.

If he sets his heart on a thing he won’t be afraid of anything —

As to conversations such as the one held with Evgenie Pavlovitch, he avoided them as far as possible, feeling that there were certain objections to which he could make no answer.

Unsuspicious and unobservant as he was,

“With you and me there would have been a scene. We should have shouted and fought, and called in the police. But he has simply made some new friends

their exclamations and sighs were so numerous and sincere that he was obliged to tell the whole story

The prince rose from his seat in a condition of mental collapse.

As a general rule, people, even the wicked, are much more naïve and simple-hearted than we suppose. And we ourselves are, too.

who was apparently not bad-hearted but had become an insufferable tyrant through idleness.

he adopted the monastic life was simply because at that time it struck him, so to say, as the ideal escape for his soul struggling from the darkness of worldly wickedness to the light of love.

For socialism is not merely the labor question, it is before all things the atheistic question,

is true, perhaps, that this instrument which had stood the test of a thousand years for the moral regeneration of a man from slavery to freedom and to moral perfectibility may be a two-edged weapon and it may lead some not to humility and complete self-control but to the most Satanic pride, that is, to bondage and not to freedom.

Whether they had really been healed or were simply better in the natural course of the disease was a question which did not exist for Alyosha,

I am an inveterate buffoon, and have been from birth up, your reverence, it’s as though it were a craze in me.

I dare say it’s a devil within me. But only a little one. A more serious one would have chosen another lodging.

The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to such a pass that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others.

The man who lies to himself can be more easily offended than any one.

There is silent and long-suffering sorrow to be met with among the peasantry.

Lamentations comfort only by lacerating the heart still more. Such grief does not desire consolation. It feeds on the sense of its hopelessness. Lamentations spring only from the constant craving to reopen the wound.

Strive to love your neighbor actively and indefatigably. In as far as you advance in love you will grow surer of the reality of God and of the immortality of your soul.

‘I love humanity,’ he said, ‘but I wonder at myself. The more I love humanity in general, the less I love man in particular.

Above all, avoid falsehood, every kind of falsehood, especially falseness to yourself.

Men will even give their lives if only the ordeal does not last long but is soon over, with all looking on and applauding as though on the stage.

The socialist who is a Christian is more to be dreaded than a socialist who is an atheist.’

With old liars who have been acting all their lives there are moments when they enter so completely into their part that they tremble or shed tears of emotion in earnest, although at that very moment, or a second later, they are able to whisper to themselves,”You know you are lying, you shameless old sinner! You’re acting now, in spite of your ‘holy’ wrath.”

you’re a saint, I know, but the devil only knows what you’ve thought about, and what you know already!

Miüsov passed immediately from the most benevolent frame of mind to the most savage. All the feelings that had subsided and died down in his heart revived instantly.

And, though he knew perfectly well that with each word he would be adding more and more absurdity, he could not restrain himself, and plunged forward blindly.

every one in the town was ready to look after her as being an idiot, and so specially dear to God.

And the vagueness of his apprehension increased the apprehension itself.

An angel in heaven I’ve told already; but I want to tell an angel on earth.

“That would make the people flock, and bring the money in.”

he’s a lackey and a mean soul. Raw material for revolution, however, when the time comes.”

If there is a God, if He exists, then, of course, I’m to blame, and I shall have to answer for it. But if there isn’t a God at all, what do they deserve, your fathers?

“There would have been no civilization if they hadn’t invented God.”

Why had he sent him into the world? Here was peace. Here was holiness. But there was confusion, there was darkness in which one lost one’s way and went astray at once...”

But it was just his craziness attracted them.

“Never trust a woman’s tears, Alexey Fyodorovitch. I am never for the women in such cases. I am always on the side of the men.”

Schoolboys are a merciless race, individually they are angels, but together, especially in schools, they are often merciless.

One can love one’s neighbors in the abstract, or even at a distance, but at close quarters it’s almost impossible.

“I think if the devil doesn’t exist, but man has created him, he has created him in his own image and likeness.”

Men are themselves to blame, I suppose; they were given paradise, they wanted freedom, and stole fire from heaven, though they knew they would become unhappy, so there is no need to pity them.

They will understand themselves, at last, that freedom and bread enough for all are inconceivable together,

And as man cannot bear to be without the miraculous, he will create new miracles of his own for himself,

Indeed, precious memories may remain even of a bad home, if only the heart knows how to find what is precious.

he was very charitable, too, in secret, a fact which only became known after his death.

you have dared to serve the truth, even when by doing so you risked incurring the contempt of all.”