Great Throughts Treasury

"An ass? That's odd, observed Lizaveta Prokofyevna. Yet there's nothing odd about it; one of us may even fall in love with an ass, she observed, looking wrathfully at the laughing girls. It's happened in mythology. Go on, prince."

"An elder was one who took your soul, your will, into his soul and his will. When you choose an elder, you renounce your own will and yield it to him in complete submission, complete self-abnegation" just like some Muslims who conseiders their sheikh as holy, some christians worship their (elder)"

"An intelligent man cannot seriously changed into something else, only an idiot can do it. Yes, an intelligent man in the nineteenth century to be primarily a spineless creature, indeed, is bound to be, a man of character, an active man is pre-eminently a creature limited."

"Ancient memories are all that remained her now, while the remaining has dissipated Calcahab"

"And a real, undoubted grief is sometimes capable of making a solid and steadfast man even out of a phenomenally light-minded one, if only for a short time; moreover, real and true grief has sometimes even made fools more intelligent, also only for a time, of course; grief has this property."

"And after all, who knows whether proof of the devil is also proof of God? I want to join an idealist society and form an opposition within it: 'I'm a realist,' I'll say, 'not a materialist,' heh, heh!"

"And as I look at the lives of the poor dreamer! Monotonous death, shadows, dreams, ideas, fitting a life prisoner. Filled the heart of the unbearable torture, always covered with dark clouds, the sun did not see the face of a life! However, there is need of the sun, like everyone else in this poor Petersburglunun; sunless even seen the value of your dreams does not exist! The pain of the matter is, in the end it was very trust in escapism, fatigue gradually assume endless binge-old begins to lose viability. Established on the thoughts of all our dreams start to age, rather than new ones, fool's paradise, and the rest is destroyed before the collapse, and dust remains, but where you can only imagine the life brushwood, or another life waiting for you, what are you going to do?"

"And at the very the matter: of here's I am now too from yourself ask a one an idle question: what to it is better - cheap happiness or the exalted the suffering of? Let’s go, that it is better?"

"And before you know it, the object disappears, arguments evaporate; no culprit is discovered, the offense ceases to be an offense and becomes a matter of fate, like the toothache which cannot be blamed on anyone, and the only thing that's left is, once again, to bang the wall as hard as you can."

"And do you know, do you know that mankind can live without the Englishman, it can live without Germany, it can live only too well without the Russian man, it can live without science, without bread, and it only cannot live without beauty, for then there would be nothing at all to do in the world! The whole secret is here, the whole of history is here. Science itself would not stand for a minute without beauty."

"And do you know, I came with horror to the conclusion that, if anything could dissipate my love for humanity, it would be ingratitude. In short, I am a hired servant, I expect my payment at once--that is, praise, and the repayment of love with love. Otherwise I am incapable of loving anyone."

"And even if one tried, it would be very hard to give a true account, for there were no thoughts in Ivan's mind but something very vague. He felt that he had lost his bearings."

"And how are the other weak ones to blame, because they could not endure what the strong have endured?"

"And I fancy, besides, that we seem like such different people... through various circumstances, that we cannot perhaps have many points in common. But yet I don't believe in that last idea myself, for it often only seems that there are no points in common, when there really are some... it's just laziness that makes people classify themselves according to appearances, and fail to find anything in common... But perhaps I am boring you?"

"And I feared more each day for Alexandra Mikhailovna. His sad life, monotonous, was extinguished under my eyes. His health worsened day by day. A kind of despair seemed standing over of his soul. She was visibly under the impression of something unknown, of indefinite, whose itself could not realize, something terrible and at the same time incomprehensible, but she accepted like the cross of its condemned life ."

"And I proclaim that Shakespeare and Raphael are higher than the emancipation of the serfs, higher than nationality, higher than socialism, higher than the younger generation, higher than chemistry, higher than almost all mankind, for they are already the fruit, the real fruit of all mankind, and maybe the highest fruit there ever may be! A form of beauty already achieved, without the achievement of which I might not even consent to live..."

"And if it is a mystery, then we, too, had the right to preach mystery and to teach them that it is not the free choice of the heart that matters, and not love, but the mystery, which they must blindly obey, even setting aside their own conscience. And so we did. We corrected your deed and based it on miracle, mystery, and authority. And mankind rejoiced that they were once more led like sheep, and that at last such a terrible gift, which had brought them so much suffering, had been taken from their hearts."

"And if only fate would have sent him repentance - burning repentance that would have torn his heart and robbed him of sleep, that repentance, the awful agony of which brings visions of hanging and drowning!"

"And if the sufferings of children go to replenish the amount of suffering that was necessary for the purchase of truth, then I say in advance that the truth is not worth such a price!"

"And if the sufferings of children just filling the amount of suffering that was required to be redeemed is true, then what I say that all truth is not worth it ... I do not want harmony, I do out of love for humanity. I prefer to stay with their unredressed suffering. I'd rather hang on to their suffering and his bitterness, even if not a right. Well, too high a price determined that harmony, not in our pocket so many tickets. And that is why I made ??haste to get my ticket. If I am an honest man, I am obliged to return as soon as possible. That's what I'm doing. Not that I do not recognize God, Alyosha, but he only most humbly return ticket."

"And if there's love, you can do without happiness too. Even with sorrow, life is sweet."

"And in fact you're not like everyone else: you weren't ashamed just now to confess bad and even ridiculous things about yourself. Who would confess such things nowadays? No one, and people have even stopped feeling any need for self-judgment."

"And in vain does the dreamer rummage about in his old dreams, raking them over as though they were a heap of cinders, looking into these cinders for some spark, however tiny, to fan it into a flame so as to warm his chilled blood by it and revive in it all that he held so dear before, all that touched his heart, that made his blood course through his veins, that drew tears from his eyes, and that so splendidly deceived him!"

"And indeed, human beings in general are fond, even inordinately fond, of being trampled on, have you noticed that? But of women it's especially true. One might even say they that can't get along without it."

"And is it only a dream, that in the end man will find his joy in deeds of enlightenment and mercy alone, and not in cruel pleasures as now?"

"And it all flew away like a dream--even my passion, and yet it really was strong and true, but...where has it gone now? Indeed the thought occasionally flits through my head: "Didn't I go out of my mind then and spend the whole time sitting in a madhouse somewhere, and maybe I'm sitting there now--so that for me it was all a seeming and only seems to this day."

"And it was after that that I found out the truth. I learnt the truth last November — on the third of November, to be precise — and I remember every instant since."

"And it was not that he seemed to have forgotten or intentionally forgiven the affront, but simply that he did not regard it as an affront."

"And Lisa, had just retired Alyosha, immediately turned her latch, door ajar drop, put your finger in the slot and slammed the door as hard as it pressed down. Ten seconds later, releasing his hand, she quietly walked slowly to his chair, sat down, all upright and began to stare at his blackened finger and nail been pressed out of the blood. Her lips trembled, and she quickly, quickly whispered to himself…"

"And man has actually invented God. And what's strange, what would be marvelous, is not that God should really exist; the marvel is that such an idea, the idea of the necessity of God, could enter the head of such a savage, vicious beast as man. So holy it is, so touching, so wise and so great a credit it does to man."

"And me? I suffer, and still I do not live. I am an x in an indeterminate equation. I am some sort of ghost of life who has lost all ends and beginnings, and I've finally even forgotten what to call myself...You're eternally angry, you want reason only, but I will repeat to you once more that I would give all of that life beyond the stars, all ranks and honors, only to be incarnated in the soul of a two-hundred-and-fifty-pound merchant's wife and light candles to God."

"And meanwhile, even in spite of all my desire, I could never imagine to myself that there is no future life and no providence. Most likely there is all that, but we don't understand anything about the future life and its laws. But if it is so difficult and even completely impossible to understand it, can it be that I will have to answer for being unable to comprehend the unknowable? True, they say, and the prince, of course, along with them, that it is here that obedience is necessary, that one must obey without reasoning, out of sheer good behavior, and that I am bound to be rewarded for my meekness in the other world. We abase providence too much by ascribing our own notions to it, being vexed that we can't understand it. But, again, if it's impossible to understand it, then, I repeat, it is hard to have to answer for something it is not given to man to understand. And if so, how are they going to judge me for being unable to understand the true will and laws of providence? No, we'd better leave religion alone."

"And now once again I asked myself the question: do I love her? And once more I could not answer, that is to say, again, for the hundredth time, I answered that I hated her."

"And one may ask what is the good of a love that must constantly be spied on, and what is the worth of a love that needs to be guarded so intensely? But that is something the truly jealous will never understand, though at the same time there happen, indeed, to be lofty hearts among them. It is also remarkable that these same lofty-hearted men, while standing in some closet, eavesdropping and spying, though they understand clearly ‘in their lofty hearts’ all the shame they have gotten into of their own will, nevertheless, at least for the moment, while standing in that closet, will not feel any pangs of remorse. Mitya’s jealousy disappeared at the sight of Grushenka, and for a moment he became trustful and noble, and even despised himself for his bad feelings. But this meant only that his love for this woman consisted of something much higher than he himself supposed, and not in passion alone, not merely in that curve of the body he had explained to Alyosha. But when Grushenka disappeared, Mitya at once began to suspect in her all the baseness and perfidy of betrayal. And for that he felt no pangs of remorse."

"And see how everyone is interested in, and all came, all on my print look, and I do not seal the article in the package, there would be no effect! Ha-ha! That's what it means, the mystery!"

"And since there are rich people who do not like suffering that the poor complain loudly about their sad lot; '! They are pushy' they harass', they say ‘Yes, poverty is more intrusive: The moaning of the Hungry disturb the crates in sleep!’"

"And so I ask myself: 'Where are your dreams?' And I shake my head and mutter: 'How the years go by!' And I ask myself again: 'What have you done with those years? Where have you buried your best moments? Have you really lived? Look,' I say to myself, 'how cold it is becoming all over the world!' And more years will pass and behind them will creep grim isolation. Tottering senility will come hobbling, leaning on a crutch, and behind these will come unrelieved boredom and despair. The world of fancies will fade, dreams will wilt and die and fall like autumn leaves from the trees. . . ."

"And so in that very shame I suddenly begin a hymn."

"And so these refined parents rejected their five-year-old girl to all kinds of torture. They beat her, kicked her, flogged her, for no reason that they themselves knew of. The child’s whole body was covered in bruises. Eventually they devised a new refinement. Under the pretext that the child dirtied her bed (as though a five-year-old deep in her angelic sleep could be punished for that), they forced her to eat excrement, smearing it all over her face. And it was the mother that did it! And that woman would lock her daughter up in the outhouse until morning and she did so even on the coldest nights, when it was freezing. Just imagine the woman being able to sleep with the child’s cries coming from that outhouse! Imagine that little creature, unable to even understand what is happening to her, beating her sore little chest with her tiny fist, weeping hot, unresentful, meek tears, and begging ‘gentle Jesus’ to help her… let’s assume that you were called upon to build the edifice of human destiny so that men would finally be happy and would find peace and tranquility. If you knew that, only to attain this, you would have to torture just one single creature, let’s say the little girl who beat her chest so desperately in the outhouse, and that on her unavenged tears you could build that edifice, would you agree to do it?"

"And so will I here state just plainly and briefly that I accept God. But I must point out one thing: if God does exist and really created the world, as we well know, he created it according to the principles of Euclidean geometry and made the human brain capable of grasping only three dimensions of space. Yet there have been and still are mathematicians and philosophers-among them some of the most outstanding-who doubt that the whole universe or, to put it more generally, all existence was created to fit Euclidean geometry; they even dare to conceive that two parallel lines that, according to Euclid, never do meet on earth do, in fact, meet somewhere in infinity. And so my dear boy, I’ve decided that I am incapable of understanding of even that much, I cannot possibly understand about God."

"And so, if you wish to glimpse inside a human soul and get to know a man, don't bother analyzing his ways of being silent, of talking, of weeping, or seeing how much he is moved by noble ideas; you'll get better results if you just watch him laugh. If he laughs well, he's a good man. You must, however, note all the shades of his laugh."

"And so, since then, I've been preaching. Moreover... I love those who laugh at me even more than the rest. Why, I don't know... but so be it. They say that even now I don't make much sense..."

"And the more I drink the more I feel it. That's why I drink too. I try to find sympathy and feeling in drink.... I drink so that I may suffer twice as much!"

"And the peasants would beat them so cruelly, sometimes even about the nose and eyes, and he felt so sorry, so sorry for them that he almost cried, and his mother always used to take him away from the window."

"And the people rejoiced that they were again led like a flock."

"And the son bursting into his father's house, killing him, and at the same time not killing him, this is not even a novel, not a poem. It is a sphinx posing riddles, which it, of course, will not solve itself. If he killed him, he killed him; how can it be that he killed him and yet did not kill him--who can understand that? Then it is announced to us that our tribune is the tribune of truth and sensible ideas, and so from this tribune of 'sensible ideas' an axiom resounds, accompanied by an oath, that to call the murder of a father parricide is simply a prejudice! But if parricide is a prejudice, and if every child ought to ask his father, 'Father, why should I love you?'--what will become of us, what will become of the foundations of society, where will the family end up? Parricide--don't you see, it's just the 'brimstone' of some Moscow merchant's wife? The most precious, the most sacred precepts concerning the purpose and future of the Russian courts are presented perversely and frivolously, only to achieve a certain end, to achieve the acquittal of that which cannot be acquitted. 'Oh, overwhelm him with mercy,' the defense attorney exclaims, and that is just what the criminal wants, and tomorrow everyone will see how overwhelmed he is! And is the defense attorney not being too modest in asking only for the defendant's acquittal? Why does he not ask that a fund be established in the parricide's name, in order to immortalize his deed for posterity and the younger generation? The Gospel and religion are corrected: it's all mysticism, he says, and ours is the only true Christianity, tested by the analysis of reason and sensible ideas. And so a false image of Christ is held up to us! With what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you,' the defense attorney exclaims, and concludes then and there that Christ commanded us to measure with the same measure as it is measured to us--and that from the tribune of truth and sensible ideas! We glance into the Gospel only on the eve of our speeches, in order to make a brilliant display of our familiarity with what is, after all, a rather original work, which may prove useful and serve for a certain effect, in good measure, all in good measure! Yet Christ tells us precisely not to do so, to beware of doing so, because that is what the wicked world does, whereas we must forgive and turn our cheek, and not measure with the same measure as our offenders measure to us. This is what our God taught us, and not that it is a prejudice to forbid children to kill their own fathers. And let us not, from the rostrum of truth and sensible ideas, correct the Gospel of our God, whom the defense attorney deems worthy of being called merely 'the crucified lover of mankind,' in opposition to the whole of Orthodox Russia, which calls out to him: 'For thou art our God!"

"And then there's another snag you keep coming across: such decent and sensible people keep appearing in life, such wise men, and such lovers of the human race who, throughout their lives, set themselves the very task of conducting themselves as properly and sensibly as possible, as it were to enlighten their neighbors for the very purpose of proving to them that it is really possible to live decently and sensibly on this earth. And so, it is well known that, sooner or later, towards the ends of their lives, many of these people have betrayed themselves by committing some ludicrous act or another, at times even of the most indecent sort."

"And therefore the idea of serving mankind, of the brotherhood and oneness of people, is fading more and more in the world, and indeed the idea now even meets with mockery, for how can one drop one's habits, where will this slave go now that he is so accustomed to satisfying the innumerable needs he himself has invented? He is isolated, and what does he care about the whole? They have succeeded in amassing more and more things, but have less and less joy."

"And they take advantage! How to take advantage! And you have become accustomed. Han cried a little, than you are used to. To all you get used to that coward which is man."

"And though I suffer for you, yet it eases my heart to suffer for you."