But what about me? I suffer, but still, I don’t live. I am x in an indeterminate equation. I am a sort of phantom in life who has lost all beginning and end, and who has even forgotten his own name. You are laughing- no, you are not laughing, you are angry again. You are forever angry, all you care about is intelligence, but I repeat again that I would give away all this superstellar life, all the ranks and honours, simply to be transformed into the soul of a merchant’s wife weighing eighteen stone and set candles at God’s shrine
إن حب الابن أباه يصبح سخفا باطلا حين لا يسوغه خلق الأب ! ، إن مثل هذا الحب لا يمكن أن يقبله العقل ، ما كان للحب أن يقوم على العدم ! لأن الله وحده يستطيع أن يخلق من عدم ، إن الرسول بولس الذي كان قلبه يتأجج حبا قد كتب يقول "وأنتم أيها الآباء لا تغيظوا أولادكم" إنني أبيح لنفسي أن استشهد بهذه الآيات المقدسة لا لأنني أفكر في موكلي فحسب ، وإنما أنا استشهد بها متوجها إلى جميع الآباء ، من الذي وهب لي حق أن أعظهم بما يقع على عاتقهم من واجب ؟ لا أحد ! ولكنني أناديهم بصفتي إنسانا مواطنا ، إن إقامتنا على هذه الأرض قصيرة ، ونحن نقوم على هذه الأرض بكثير من الأعمال الشريرة وننطق بكثير من الأقوال المؤسفة ......يجب علينا أن نطبق نحن أولا تعاليم المسيح وبعد ذلك إنما يحق لنا أن نطالب أبناءنا بتطبيقها فإذا لم نفعل ذلك لم نكن أبناء آبائنا بل كنا أعداءهم وسيصبحون أعداءنا هم أيضا سيصبحون أعداءنا بسبب خطئنا نحن ، "بالكيل الذي به تكيلون يُكال لكم " لست أنا من يقول هذا الكلام ، وإنما يقوله الإنجيل ، كيلوا بالكيل الذي يُكال به لكم !فكيف نأخذ على أبناءنا أن يكيلوا بالكيل الذي نكيل لهم به !!
ان ما من شئ في هذا العالم يمكن ان يجبر البشر على ان يحبوا أقرانهم, و انه ما من قانون طبيعي يفرض على الانسان ان يحب الانسانية, فاذا كان قد وجد و ما يزال يوجد على هذة الارض شئ من الحب فليس مرد ذلك الى قانون طبيعي بل الى سبب واحد هو اعتقاد البشر انهم خالدون. ان هذا الاعتقاد هو في الاساس الوحيد لكل قانون اخلاقي طبيعي, فاذا فقدت الانسانية هذا الاعتقاد بالخلود فسرعان ما ستغيض كل ينابيع الحب بل و سرعان ما سيفقد البشر كل قدرة على مواصلة حياتهم في هذا العالم. اكثر من ذلك انه لن يبقى هنالك شئ يعد منافيا للاخلاق و سيكون كل شئ مباحا, حتى اكل لحوم البشر.
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 play the buffoon, for you are, every one of you, stupider and lower than I." He longed to revenge himself on every one for his own unseemliness. He suddenly recalled how he had once in the past been asked, "Why do you hate so and so, so much?" And he had answered them, with his shameless impudence, "I'll tell you. He has done me no harm. But I played him a dirty trick, and ever since I have hated him.
Now, I did know a certain young lady of the 'romantic' generation of not so long ago who, after being mysteriously in love for several years with a certain gentleman whom she could have married at any time without the least difficulty, suddenly broke off their relationship, inventing for herself all manner of insurmountable obstacles, and one stormy night plunged from a high, precipitous cliff into a fairly deep and fast-flowing river, where she perished from her own caprice solely through her attempt to imitate Shakespeare's Ophelia, for, had the precipice, which she had long before singled out and been compulsively drawn to, been less picturesque, and had there been only a prosaically flat bank in its stead, perhaps there would have been no suicide at all.
Listen, Parfyon, a few moments ago you asked me a question, and this is my answer: the essence of religious feeling has nothing to do with any reasoning, or any crimes and misdemeanors or atheism; is is something entirely different and it will always be so; it is something our atheists will always overlook, and they will never talk about THAT. But the important thing is that you will notice it most clearly in a Russian heart, and that's the conclusion I've come to! This is one of the chief convictions I have acquired in our Russia. There's work to be done, Parfyon. Believe me, there's work to be done in our Russian world!
Every day and every hour, every minute, walk round yourself and watch yourself, and see that your image is a seemly one. You pass by a little child, you pass by, spiteful, with ugly words, with wrathful heart; you may not have noticed the child, but he has seen you, and your image, unseemly and ignoble, may remain in his defenceless heart. You don't know it, but you may have sown an evil seed in him and it may grow, and all because you were not careful before the child, because you did not foster in yourself a careful, actively benevolent love. Brothers, love is a teacher; but one must know how to acquire it, for it is hard to acquire, it is dearly bought, it is won slowly by long labour. For we must love not only occasionally, for a moment, but for ever. Everyone can love occasionally, even the wicked can.
There is a remarkable picture called 'Contemplation.' It shows a forest in winter and on a roadway through the forest, in absolute solitude, stands a peasant in a torn kaftan and bark shoes. he stands, as it were, lost in thought. Yet he is not thinking: he is "contemplating." If anyone touched him he would start and look bewildered. It's true he would come to himself immediately; but if he were asked what he had been thinking about, he would remember nothing. Yet probably he has hidden within himself, the impression which dominated him during that period of contemplation. Those impressions are dear to him and he probably hoards them imperceptibly, and even unconsciously. How and why, of course, he does not know. He may suddenly, after hoarding impressions for many years, abandon everything and go off to Jerusalem on a pilgrimage. Or he may suddenly set fire to his native village. Or he may do both.
...The men of those days...were absolutely not the same people that we are now; it was not the same race as now, in our age, really, it seems we are a different species...In those days they were men of one idea, but now we are more nervous, more developed, more sensitive; men capable of two or three ideas at once...Modern men are broader-minded - and I swear that this prevents their being so all-of-a-piece as they were in those days.
You pass by a little child, you pass by, spiteful, with ugly words, with wrathful heart; you may not have noticed the child, but he has seen you, and your image, unseemly and ignoble, may remain in his defenseless heart. You don’t know it, but you may have sown an evil seed in him and it may grow, and all because you were not careful before the child, because you did not foster in yourself a careful, actively benevolent love.
The repugnance to what must ensue almost immediately, and the uncertainty, were dreadful, he said; but worst of all was the idea, 'What should I do if I were not to die now? What if I were to return to life again? What an eternity of days, and all mine! How I should grudge and count up every minute of it, so as to waste not a single instant!' He said that this thought weighed so upon him and became such a terrible burden upon his brain that he could not bear it, and wished they would shoot him quickly and have done with it."The prince paused and all waited, expecting him to go on again and finish the story."Is that all?" asked Aglaya."All? Yes," said the prince, emerging from a momentary reverie."And why did you tell us this?""Oh, I happened to recall it, that's all! It fitted into the conversation—""You probably wish to deduce, prince," said Alexandra, "that moments of time cannot be reckoned by money value, and that sometimes five minutes are worth priceless treasures. All this is very praiseworthy; but may I ask about this friend of yours, who told you the terrible experience of his life? He was reprieved, you say; in other words, they did restore to him that 'eternity of days.' What did he do with these riches of time? Did he keep careful account of his minutes?""Oh no, he didn't! I asked him myself. He said that he had not lived a bit as he had intended, and had wasted many, and many a minute.""Very well, then there's an experiment, and the thing is proved; one cannot live and count each moment; say what you like, but one cannot." "That is true," said the prince, "I have thought so myself. And yet, why shouldn't one do it?""You think, then, that you could live more wisely than other people?" said Aglaya."I have had that idea.""And you have it still?""Yes — I have it still," the prince replied.