The Brothers Karamazov

by Fyodor Dostoevsky

miracles never trouble a realist. It’s not miracles that may succeed in persuading a realist to believe. A genuine realist, if he’s a nonbeliever, always finds in himself the strength and ability not to believe in a miracle, and if the miracle stands before him as an indisputable fact, then he would sooner disbelieve his feelings than admit the fact. And if he does admit the fact, then he does so as a fact of nature, one that was unknown to him before.

“It’s because, sir,” he blurted unexpectedly in a loud voice, “that if this praiseworthy soldier’s feat was so great, sir, then, in my opinion, there would have been no sin if, in this occurrence, he’d renounced the name of Christ, so to speak, and even denied his own christening, and, by so doing, saved his own life for future good deeds, which, in the course of years, he’d do as penance for his sin of cowardliness.”

This runs counter to what St Paul says in Romans, that doing wrong that may result in good isn’t proper..

Translated; All this is rubbish. ?Ecclesiastes?

does any man really have the right, regarding other people, to decide which of them is worthy to live and which one is not worthy?” “Why introduce the question of worth into this matter? This question is decided most of all in men’s hearts, not on the basis of worth,

‘Save, O Lord, those who have no one to pray for them; also save those who don’t wish to pray to You.’ And add: ‘I am not praying about them from my pride, Lord, for I myself am vile and worse than everyone and everything.’

but you should know, Katerina Ivanovna, that you really love only him. And the more he insults you, the more you love him. That’s your rupture. You love him just as he is; you love him for insulting you. If he ever reformed, you’d desert him and stop loving him entirely. You need him so as to be constantly aware of your heroic feat of fidelity and to reproach him for his infidelity. And it’s all a result of your pride. Oh, there’s a great deal of degradation and humiliation involved, but it’s all from pride.

And so, I accept God, not only willingly, but, not least, in all His wisdom and His purpose, which are completely unknown to us; I believe in order, in the meaning of life, I believe in eternal harmony, in which we shall all merge, I believe in the Word,7 toward which the universe is striving, and which itself ‘was with God,’ and which is God, and so on and so forth. Many words have been written on this subject. It seems that I’m on a good path, right? Well, just imagine, in the final result I don’t accept God’s world, and though I know that it exists, I don’t accept it at all. It’s not God that I don’t accept, you must understand, but the world created by Him; I don’t accept God’s world and can’t agree to accept it. I make the following proviso: I’m convinced, like a child, that suffering will be healed and alleviated; that all the offensive comicality of human contradictions will disappear, like a pitiful mirage, like the vile ruminations of an infinitesimally small, feeble, Euclidean mind, which, in the last analysis, at world’s end, at the moment of eternal harmony, something so valuable will transpire that it will be sufficient for all hearts, for the comforting of all indignations, for the expiation of people’s wicked deeds, all the blood shed by them, it’ll be possible not only to forgive, but even to justify everything that’s happened to people—may all this come to pass; but I don’t accept it and don’t wish to accept it! Even if parallel lines meet and I myself get...

‘Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.’

The footnote to this line says that this phrase from Jesus is the epigraph of this entire book!

By understanding freedom as the multiplication and the rapid satisfaction of needs, men distort their own nature,

they themselves declare that, on the contrary, they are progressing toward unity, only the most simple-hearted of them believe it, so that one can even marvel at their simplicity. In fact, they have more dreamlike fantasy than we do. They want to build it fairly, but, in rejecting Christ, they end up by drenching the world in blood, because blood cries out for blood, and he that lives by the sword shall die by the sword.7

As clear a reference to Nietzsche as one needs that Dostoyevsky wrote to counter Nietzsche.

“And I’m here with you, too; I won’t leave you; I’ll be with you for your whole life.”

if He didn’t exist, one would have to invent Him,”

Referring here to Voltaire.

the nerves in the brain (devil take them!) . . . they have these little tails, the nerves do; well, as soon as they start wiggling, that is, wiggling their little tails, when they start wiggling, an image appears, not immediately, but an instant, a second passes, and then there appears a moment . . . devil take this moment—but an image, that is, an object or an event, well, devil take it—and that’s why I contemplate and then I think . . . because of these little tails, and not at all because I have a soul and am made in the ‘image and likeness,’

An reference to neurology as it stood in the late 1800’s

“I know only one thing,” Alyosha said, still almost in a whisper. “You didn’t kill Father.” “ ‘Not me!’ What do you mean, not me?” Ivan was flabbergasted. “You didn’t kill Father, it wasn’t you!” Alyosha repeated firmly. The silence lasted half a minute. “I myself know it wasn’t me. Why are you raving?” Ivan asked with a pale, distorted grin. He stared fixedly at Alyosha. They were both standing under a streetlight again. “No, Ivan, you’ve told yourself several times that you killed him.” “When did I say this? I was in Moscow. . . . When did I say it?” Ivan stuttered, completely at a loss. “You told yourself that many times, when you were left alone during these last two terrible months,” Alyosha continued, as quietly and distinctly as before. But he was speaking as if he were beside himself, not by his own will, but obeying some vague command. “You blamed yourself and admitted that the killer was no one else but you. But you didn’t kill him, you’re mistaken, you’re not the murderer, do you hear me, it’s not you! God sent me to tell you that.” They both fell silent. This silence lasted for one long whole minute. They both stood and continued looking directly at each other. They were both pale. Suddenly Ivan started shaking all over and grasped Alyosha tightly by the shoulder. “You’ve been in my room!” he said in a grating whisper. “You came to my room at night when he was here. . . . Admit it. . . . You’ve seen him, you did.” “Who are you talking about . . . about Mitya?” ...

Surely this an important emotional climax in this long saga

I.e the heavens

The use of clever but unsound reasoning

“most ordinary, even most unattractive Russian woman of the lower middle class.”

A most interesting description, given that the character descriptions I have describe her as very beautiful.

vain Ippolit Kirillovich, considering himself constantly offended by someone

In the realm of real life, which not only has its own rights, but also imposes great obligations—in this realm, if we wish to be humane Christians after all, we should and we’re obliged to act only according to convictions justified by reason and experience, passed through the crucible of analysis; in a word, we must act rationally and not insanely as in a dream or delirium, so as not to cause harm to any person and not to torment or destroy any man. Then, then it will be a genuine Christian act, not merely mystical, but a rational and philanthropic act

‘Drive nature out the door and it will come in through the window.’