The Complete Novels

by Fyodor Dostoevsky

for man loves to see the downfall and disgrace of the righteous.

They live upon their vindictive pride like a starving man in the desert sucking blood out of his own body.

He was particularly clever in getting round people and assuming whatever part he thought most to their taste, if he detected the slightest advantage to himself from doing so.

But it seemed as though God had in this case let the minority get the upper hand for a time.

On the contrary, a man of lofty feelings, whose love is pure and full of self-sacrifice, may yet hide under tables, bribe the vilest people, and be familiar with the lowest ignominy of spying and eavesdropping.

And one might wonder what there was in a love that had to be so watched over, what a love could be worth that needed such strenuous guarding.

Money’s like dirt or water to you, it seems.

“Such violent and protracted epileptic fits, recurring continually for twenty-four hours, are rarely to be met

“We are in no mood for joking,”

I cannot make up my mind, you see, though I’m making up my mind every day,

She gave way to him, oh, she had given way to him for years.

the more demonstrations of feeling were demanded of him the more he seemed intentionally to avoid them.

There’s nothing funny in nature, however funny it may seem to man with his prejudices.

“When you are older, you’ll understand for yourself the influence of age on convictions.

The doctors are always confirming; they confirm anything.

“That I am sorry to lose God? It’s chemistry, brother, chemistry! There’s no help for it, your reverence, you must make way for chemistry.

One cannot exist in prison without God; it’s even more impossible than out of prison.

Then if He doesn’t exist, man is the chief of the earth, of the universe. Magnificent! Only how is he going to be good without God? That’s the question.

I tell you the public would have believed it all, and you would have been ashamed for the rest of your life.”

I brought him to it by a hint, as though I didn’t see it myself, and as though he’d thought of it himself and I hadn’t prompted him;

you are far cleverer than I thought...”

‘all things are lawful.’ That was quite right what you taught me, for you talked a lot to me about that. For if there’s no everlasting God, there’s no such thing as virtue,

You are very clever. You are fond of money, I know that. You like to be respected, too, for you’re very proud;

“what’s the good of believing against your will?

“You choose out only my worst thoughts, and what’s more, the stupid ones. You are stupid and vulgar.

‘It’s reactionary to believe in God in our days,’ I said, ‘but I am the devil, so I may be believed in.’

Without suffering what would be the pleasure of it? It would be transformed into an endless church service; it would be holy, but tedious.

I haven’t a hundredth part of a grain of faith in you!”

maintain that nothing need be destroyed, that we only need to destroy the idea of God in man, that’s how we have to set to work.

He would put his whole soul into some case and work at it as though his whole fate and his whole fortune depended on its result.

Every one, perhaps, felt from the first that the case was beyond dispute, that there was no doubt about it, that there could be really no discussion, and that the defense was only a matter of form, and that the prisoner was guilty, obviously and conclusively guilty.

the old servant’s composure in telling it, his parsimony of words and peculiar phraseology, were as effective as eloquence.

in another man’s hand a crust always seems larger,

People talk to you a great deal about your education, but some good, sacred memory, preserved from childhood, is perhaps the best education.

How good life is when one does something good and just!”