The Brothers Karamazov

by Fyodor Dostoevsky

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

Fyodor Pavlovitch was all his life fond of acting, of suddenly playing an unexpected part, sometimes without any motive for doing so, and even to his own direct disadvantage, as, for instance, in the present case. This habit, however, is characteristic of a very great number of people, some of them very clever ones, not like Fyodor Pavlovitch.

The article dealt with a subject which was being debated everywhere at the time- the position of the ecclesiastical courts. After discussing several opinions on the subject he went on to explain his own view. What was most striking about the article was its tone, and its unexpected conclusion.

as the ideal escape for his soul struggling from the darkness of worldly wickedness to the light of love.

would not hesitate to give it away for the asking, either for good works or perhaps to a clever rogue.

Faith does not, in the realist, spring from the miracle but the miracle from faith.

he understood that for the humble soul of the Russian peasant, worn out by grief and toil, and still more by the everlasting injustice and everlasting sin, his own and the world's, it was the greatest need and comfort to find someone or something holy to fall down before and worship.

Indeed, I always feel when I meet people that I am lower than all, and that they all take me for a buffoon. So I say, 'Let me really play the buffoon.

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. And

having no respect he ceases to love, and in order to occupy and distract himself without love he gives way to passions and coarse pleasures, and sinks to bestiality in his vices, all...

The man who lies to himself can be more easily offe...

You know it is sometimes very pleasant to take of...

A man may know that nobody has insulted him, but that he has invented t...

has lied and exaggerated to make it picturesque, has caught at a word and made a mountain out of a molehill- he knows that himself, yet he will be the first to take offence, and will revel in his resentment till he feels great pleasure in it, and so pass to genuine vindictiveness....

Man cannot commit a sin so great as to exhaust the infinite love of

Love is such a priceless treasure that you can redeem the whole world by it, and expiate not only your own sins but the sins of others."

The more I love humanity in general, the less I love man in particular. In

If you do not attain happiness, always remember that you are on the right road, and try not to leave it.

But I predict that just when you see with horror that in spite of all your efforts you are getting farther from your goal instead of nearer to it- at that very moment I predict that you will reach it and behold clearly the miraculous power of the Lord who has been all the time loving and mysteriously guiding you. Forgive me for not being able to stay longer with you. They are waiting for me. Good-bye." The

If anything does preserve society, even in our time, and does regenerate and transform the criminal, it is only the law of Christ speaking in his conscience.

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

"If it can't be decided in the affirmative, it will never be decided in the negative.

He is one of those who don't want millions, but an answer to their questions."

Humanity will find in itself the power to live for virtue even without believing in immortality. It will find it in love for freedom, for equality, for fraternity."

Why, for reward like that I will come and fast too! No, saintly monk, you try being virtuous in the world, do good to society, without shutting yourself up in a monastery at other people's expense, and without expecting a reward up aloft for it- you'll find that a bit harder. I can talk sense, too, Father Superior. What have they got here?" He

You will hear and judge and forgive.

Beauty is a terrible and awful thing! It is terrible because it has not been fathomed and never can be fathomed,

The awful thing is that beauty is mysterious as well as terrible.

God and the devil are fighting there and the battlefield is the heart of man.

God created light on the first day, and the sun, moon, and stars on the fourth day. Where did the light come from on the first day?"

thought in it, no reflection, but only a sort of contemplation.

"My heart better than my head,

One must begin in a serious, businesslike way so as to be on a perfectly equal footing. Alyosha understood it by instinct.

worse still, if he doesn't kill me but only cripples me: I couldn't work, but I should still be a mouth to feed.

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

To begin with, he was sore at having been so glad of the money in my presence and not having concealed it from me.

much; if he had not shown it; if he had begun affecting scruples and difficulties, as other people do when they take money, he might still endure- to take

You know, Lise, it's awfully hard for a man who has been injured, when other people look at him as though they were his benefactors…

"The great thing now is to persuade him that he is on an equal footing with us, in spite of his taking

money from us," Alyosha went on in his excitement, "and not

"Certainly, love it, regardless of logic as you say, it must be regardless of logic, and it's only then one will understand the meaning of it. I have thought so a long time. Half your work is done, Ivan, you love life, now you've only to try to do the second half and you are saved."

Meaning of life

if God exists and if He really did create the world, then, as we all know, He created it according to the geometry of

Euclid and the human mind with the conception of only three dimensions in space. Yet there have been and still are geometricians and philosophers, and even some of the most distinguished, who doubt whether the whole universe, or to speak more widely, the whole of being, was only created in Euclid's geometry; they even dare to dream that two parallel lines, which according to Euclid can never

All such questions are utterly inappropriate for a mind created with an idea of only three dimensions.

And secondly, the stupider one is, the closer one is to reality. The stupider one is, the clearer one is. Stupidity is brief and artless, while intelligence

wriggles and hides itself. Intelligence is a knave, but stupidity is honest and straight forward. I've

For anyone to love a man, he must be hidden, for as soon as he shows his face, love is gone."

People talk sometimes of bestial cruelty, but that's a great injustice and insult to the beasts; a beast can never be so cruel as a man, so artistically cruel.

Why should he know that diabolical good and evil when it costs so much? Why, the whole world of knowledge is not worth