Fyodor Dostoyevsky Quotes - Page 74 | Just Great DataBase

But a certain dullness of mind seems an almost necessary qualification, if not for every public man, at least for every one seriously engaged in making money.

had sunk into a sort of incoherence, used to begin one thing and go on with another, as though he were letting himself go altogether.

I meant… I meant,’ the prince began to tremble, ‘I merely wanted to explain to Aglaya Ivanovna… to have the honour of explaining that I have never had the intention of… having the honour of asking for her hand… even some day… I’m not to blame for this in any way, I swear to God, I’m not to blame, Aglaya Ivanovna! I’ve never wanted to, and it has never been in my mind, I will never want to, you’ll see: rest assured! Some cruel person has slandered me to you! You mustn’t worry!

I exist.’ In thousands of agonies — I exist. I’m tormented on the rack — but I exist! Though I sit alone in a pillar — I exist! I see the sun, and if I don’t see the sun, I know it’s there. And there’s a whole life in that, in knowing that the sun is there.

Ненавижу я вас, Гаврила Ардалионович, единственно за то, — вам это, может быть, покажется удивительным, — единственно за то, что вы тип и воплощение, олицетворение и верх самой наглой, самой самодовольной, самой пошлой и гадкой ординарности! Вы ординарность напыщенная, ординарность несомневающаяся и олимпически успокоенная; вы рутина из рутин!

But man seeks to bow before that only which is recognized by the greater majority, if not by all his fellowmen, as having a right to be worshipped; whose rights are so unquestionable that men agree unanimously to bow down to it. For the chief concern of these miserable creatures is not to find and worship the idol of their own choice, but to discover that which all others will believe in, and consent to bow down to in a mass. It is that instinctive need of having a worship in common that is the chief suffering of every man, the chief concern of mankind from the beginning of times. It is for that universality of religious worship that people destroyed each other by sword. Creating gods unto themselves, they forthwith began appealing to each other: Abandon your deities, come and bow down to ours, or death to ye and your idols! And so will they do till the end of this world; they will do so even then, when all the gods themselves have disappeared, for then men will prostrate themselves before and worship some idea.

Не забудем, что причины действий человеческих обыкновенно бесчисленно сложнее и разнообразнее, чем мы их всегда потом объясняем, и редко определенно очерчиваются

Paper, they say, does not blush, but I assure you that it's not true and that it's blushing now just as I am blushing all over.

«Ne mentez jamais! —Napoléon, voire ami sincère».«Никогда не лгите!Наполеон, ваш искренний друг»

Lord, but why don’t you go to this lawyer yourself and tell him the whole business in private? They say he was invited from Petersburg for three thousand.

Большинство гостей состояло даже, несмотря на внушающую наружность, из довольно пустых людей, которые, впрочем, и сами не знали, в самодовольстве своем, что многое в них хорошее — одна выделка, в которой притом они не виноваты, ибо она досталась им бессознательно и по наследству

this young Karamazov, Ivan Fyodorovich, had horrified him with his spiritual unrestraint. ‘Everything, according to him, is permitted, whatever there is in the world, and from now on nothing should be forbidden—that’s

As soon as Russians feel the ground under their feet and are confident that they have reached firm ground, they are so delighted at reaching it that they rush at once to the furthest limit. Why is that? You are surprised at Pavlishtchev, and you put it down to madness on his part, or to simplicity. But it's not that! And Russian intensity in such cases is a surprise not to us only but to all Europe. If one of us turns Catholic, he is bound to become a Jesuit, and one of the most underground. If he becomes an atheist, he's sure to clamour for the extirpation of belief in God by force, that is, by the sword.

It is this demand for a universality of worship that has been the chief torment of each and every man individually and of the whole of humankind from the beginning of time. For this universality of worship, men have put one another to the sword. They have created gods and appealed to one another, ‘Leave your gods and come and worship ours, otherwise death to you and to your gods!

What’s more, any memoirs by eyewitnesses are a treasure, no matter who the eyewitness happens to be. Don’t you think so?

A few days earlier, in front of his guests at his own birthday celebration, this man had started smashing his own crockery and tearing his and his wife's clothes, because he was not offered enough vodka; then he went on to break every stick of furniture in his house and smash all the windows, and he did it all for the "beauty" of the gesture, as Mr. Karamazov had just now.

Oh! what does grief matter—what does misfortune matter, if one knows how to be happy?

These educated parents subjected the poor five-year old girl to every possible torture. They beat her, flogged her, kicked her, not knowing why themselves, until her whole body was nothing but bruises; finally they attained the height of finesse: in the freezing cold, they locked her all night in the outhouse, because she wouldn't ask to get up and go in the middle of the night (as if a five-year-old child sleeping its sound angelic sleep could have learned to ask by that age)--for that they smeared her face with her excrement and made her eat the excrement, and it was her mother, her mother who made her! And this mother could sleep while her poor little child was moaning all night in that vile place! Can you understand that a small creature, who cannot even comprehend what is being done to her, in a vile place, in the dark and the cold, beats herself on her strained little chest with her tiny fist and weeps with her anguished, gentle, meek tears for 'dear God' to protect her--can you understand such nonsense, my friend and my brother, my godly and humble novice, can you understand why this nonsense is needed and created? Without it, they say, man could not even have lived on earth, for he would not have known good and evil. Who wants to know this damned good and evil at such a price? The whole world of knowledge is not worth the tears of that little child to 'dear God.' I'm not talking about the suffering of grown-ups, they ate the apple and to hell with them, let the devil take them all, but these little ones!

Is it not enough that I am devoured, without my being expected to bless the power that devours me?

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.