• "Choosing 'bread,' thou wouldst have satisfied the universal & everlasting craving of humanity -- to find someone to worship. So long as man remains free he strives for nothing so incessantly and so painfully as to find someone to worship... but to find something that all would believe in and worship; what is essential is that all may be together in it. This craving for community of worship is the chief misery of every man individually and of all humanity from the beginning of time... "Put away your gods and come and worship ours, or we will kill you and your gods!" And so it will be to the end of the world, even when the gods disappear from the earth; they will fall down before idols just the same."
  • "...for the secret of man's being is not only to live but to have something to live for. Without a stable conception of the object of life, man would not consent to go on living, and would rather destroy himself than remain on earth, though he had bread in abundance."
  • "The great conquerors, Timurs and Genghis Khans, whirled like hurricanes over the face of the earth striving to subdue its people, and they too were but the unconscious expression of the same craving for universal unity."
  • "Your Inquisitor does not believe in God, that's his secret!" "What if it is so! At last you have guessed it. It's perfectly true, it's true that that's the whole secret, but isn't that suffering, at least for a man like that, who has wasted his life in the desert and yet could not shake off his incurable love of humanity?"
  • "...More than that, one such standing at the head is enough to create the actual leading of the Roman Church with all its armies and Jesuits, its highest idea. I tell you frankly that I firmly believe that there has always been such a man among those who stood at the head of the movement. Who knows, there may have been some such even among the Roman popes. Who knows, perhaps the spirit of that accursed old man who loves mankind so obstinately in his own way, is to be found even now in a whole multitude of such old men, existing not by chance but by agreement, as a secret league formed long ago for the guarding of the mystery, to guard it from the weak and the unhappy, so as to make them happy. No doubt it is so, and so it must be indeed. (237)
  • (Alyosha to Ivan) "You don't believe in God," he added, speaking this time very sorrowfully. (238)
  • "There is strength to endure everything," Ivan said with a cold smile. "What strength?" "The strength of the Karamazov baseness." (238)
  • "Listen, Alyosha," Ivan began in a resolute voice, "if I am really able to care for the sticky little leaves I shall only love them remembering you. It's enough for me that you are somewhere here, and I shan't lose my desire for life yet. Is that enough for you?" (239)
  • Ivan tried "not to think," but that, too, was no use. What made his depression so vexatious and irritating was that it had a kind of casual, external character -- he felt that. Some person or thing seemed to be standing out somewhere, just as something will sometimes obtrude itself upon the eye, and though one may be so busy with work or conversation that for a long time one does not notice it, yet it irritates and almost torments one till at last one realizes, and removes the offending object, often quite a trifling and ridiculous one -- some article left about in the wrong place, a handkerchief on the floor, a book not replaced on the shelf, and so on. (240-41)
  • On it is written in his own hand, 'To my angel Grushenka, if she will come,' to which he added three days later, 'for my little chicken.'
  • At moments he (Ivan) hated himself intensely.
  • His linen had come back from the laundress the previous morning. Ivan positively smiled at the thought that everything was helping his sudden departure.
  • He looked almost cheerful, but there was something about him, about his words and gestures, something hurried and scattered. (250)
  • "You see... I am going to Chermashnya," broke suddenly from Ivan. Again, as the day before, the words seemed to drop of themselves, and he laughed, too, a peculiar, nervous laugh. He remembered it long after.
  • The carriage rolled away. Nothing was clear in Ivan's soul, but he looked eagerly around him at the fields, at the hills, at the trees, at a flock of geese flying high overhead in the bright sky. All of a sudden he felt very happy. (...) He was silent, and it was pleasant even so. The air was fresh, pure, and cool, the sky bright. The images of Alyosha and Katerina Ivanova floated into his mind. But he softly smiled, blew softly on the friendly phantoms, and they flew away. (243)
  • It was a late Easter, and the days were bright, fine, and full of fragrance.
  • "...all men should wait on one another. ...There must be servants and masters, but if so I will be the servant of my servants, the same as they are to me." (261)
  • (Father Zosima) From the house of my childhood I have brought nothing but precious memories, for there are no memories more precious than those of early childhood in one's first home. And that is almost always so if there is any love and harmony in the world at all. Indeed, precious memories may remain even of a bad home, if only the heart knows how to find what is precious. (263)
  • But even before I learned to read, I remember first being moved to devotional feeling at 8 years old. My mother took me alone to mass (I don't remember where my brother was at the time) on the Monday before Easter. It was a fine day, and I remember today, as though I saw it now, how the incense rose from the censer and softly floated upwards and, overhead in the cupola, mingled in rising waves with the sunlight that streamed in at the little window. I was stirred by the sight, and for the first time in my life I consciously received the seed of God's word in my heart. A youth came out into the middle of the church carrying a big book, so large that at the time I fancied he could scarcely carry it. He laid it on the reading desk, opened it, and began reading, and suddenly for the first time I understood something read in the church of God. (263)
  • It's the great mystery of human life that the old grief passes gradually into quiet, tender joy. The mild serenity of age takes the place of the riotous blood of youth. I bless the rising sun each day, and, as before, my heart sings to meet it, but now I love even more its setting, its long slanting rays and the soft, tender, gentle memories that come with them, the dear images from the whole of my long, happy life -- and over all the Divine Truth, softening, reconciling, forgiving! My life is ending, I know that well, but every day that is left me I feel how my earthly life is in touch with a new infinite, unknown, but approaching life, the nearness of which sets my soul quivering with rapture, my mind glowing and my heart weeping with joy. (265)
  • It was a bright, warm, still July night, a cool mist rose from the broad river, we could hear the plash of a fish, the birds were still, all was hushed and beautiful, everything praying to God. Only we two were not sleeping, the lad and I, and we talked of the beauty of this world of God's and of the great mystery of it. Every blade of grass, every insect, ant, and golden bee, all so marvelously know their path, though they have not intelligence, they bear witness to the mystery of God and continually accomplish it themselves. I saw the dear lad's heart was moved. He told me that he loved the forest and the forest birds. He was a bird-catcher, knew the note of each of them, could call each bird. "I know nothing better than to be in the forest," said he, "though all things are good." (267)
  • "...in the military cadet school at Petersberg, and in the novelty of my surroundings there, many of my childish impressions grew dimmer, though I forgot nothing. I picked up so many new habits and opinions that I was transformed..." (268)
  • "...am I worth it? flashed through my mind. After all what am I worth, that another man, a fellow creature, made in the likeness and image of God, should serve me? For the first time in my life this question forced itself upon me." (270)
  • "Forgive me, young fool that I am, sir," I said, "for my unprovoked insult to you and for forcing you to fire at me. I am ten times worse than you and more, maybe. Tell that to the person whom you hold dearest in the world." (271)
  • All the while he was speaking, I was looking at him straight into the face and I felt all at once a complete trust in him and great curiosity on my side also, for I felt that there was some strange secret in his soul. (275)
  • "...For everyone strives to keep his individuality as apart as possible, wishes to secure the greatest possible fullness of life for himself; but meantime all his efforts result not in attaining fullness of life but self-destruction, for instead of self-realization he ends by arriving at complete solitude. All mankind in our age have split up into units, they all keep apart, each in his own groove; each one holds aloof, hides himself and hides what he has, from the rest, and he ends by being repelled by others and repelling them. He heaps up riches by himself and thinks, 'How strong I am now and how secure,' and in his madness he does not understand that the more he heaps up, the more he sinks into self-destructive impotence. For he is accustomed to rely upon himself alone and to cut himself off from the whole; he has trained himself not to believe in the help of others, in men and in humanity, and only trembles for fear he should lose his money and the privileges that he has won for himself. Everywhere in these days men have, in their mockery, ceased to understand that the true security is to be found in social solidarity rather than in isolated individual effort. But this terrible individualism must inevitably have an end, and all will suddenly understand how unnaturally they are separated from one another." (276)
  • "...But, until then, we must keep the banner flying. Sometimes even if he has to do it alone, and his conduct seems to be crazy, a man must set an example, and so draw men's souls out of their solitude, and spur them to some act of brotherly love, that the great idea may not die." (277)
  • His eyes were glittering, his lips were twitching. Suddenly he struck the table with his fist so that everything on it danced -- it was the first time he had done such a thing, he was such a mild man. (281)
  • "'You have desires and so satisfy them, for you have the same rights as the most rich and powerful. Don't be afraid of satisfying them and even multiply your desires.' That is the modern doctrine of the world. In that they see freedom. And what follows from this right of multiplication of desires? In the rich, isolation and spiritual suicide; in the poor, envy and murder; for they have been given rights, but have not been shown the means of satisfying their wants. They maintain that the world is getting more and more united, more and more bound together in brotherly community, as it overcomes distance and sets thoughts flying through the air." (286)
  • "...We see the same thing among those who are not rich, while the poor drown their unsatisfied need and their envy in drunkenness. But soon they will drink blood instead of wine, they are being led on to it. I ask you is such a man free?" (286)
  • "...And it's no wonder that instead of gaining freedom they have sunk into slavery, and instead of serving the cause of brotherly love and the union of humanity have fallen, on the contrary, into dissension and isolation(...) For how can a man shake off his habits? What can become of him if he is in such bondage to the habit of satisfying the innumerable desires he has created for himself?" (286-87)
  • "The monastic way is very different. Obedience, fasting, and prayer are laughed at, yet only through them lies the way to real, true freedom. I cut off my superfluous and unnecessary desires, I subdue my proud and wanton will and chastise it with obedience, and with God's help I attain freedom of spirit and with it spiritual joy. Which is most capable of conceiving a great idea and serving it -- the rich man in his isolation or the man who has freed himself from material things and habits? The monk is reproached for his solitude: 'You have secluded yourself within the walls of the monastery for your own salvation, and have forgotten the brotherly service of humanity!' But we shall see which will be most zealous in the cause of brotherly love. For it is not we, but they, who are in isolation, though they don't see that." (287)
  • His room was poor, but bright and clean. (289)
  • __"Am I worth it, that another should serve me and be ordered about by me in his poverty and ignorance?" And I wondered at the time that such simple and self-evident ideas should be so slow to occur to our minds. (290)
  • "...it will lead to the grand unity of men in the future, when a man will not seek servants for himself, or desire to turn his fellow creatures into servants as he does now, but on the contrary, will long with his whole heart to be the servant of all, as the Gospel teaches." (290)
  • "Young man, be not forgetful of prayer. Every time you pray, if your prayer is sincere, there will be new feeling and new meaning in it, which will give you fresh courage, and you will understand that prayer is an education. Remember, too, every day, and whenever you can, repeat to yourself, 'Lord, have mercy on all who appear before thee today.' For every hour and every moment thousands of men leave life on this earth, and their souls appear before God. And how many of them depart in solitude, unknown, sad, dejected that no one mourns for them or even know whether they have lived or not." (291)
  • "Brothers, have no fear of men's sin. Love a man even in his sin, for that is the semblance of divine love and is the highest love on earth. Love all God's creation, the whole and every grain of sand in it. Love every leaf, every ray of God's light. Love the animals, love the plants, love everything. If you love everything, you will perceive the divine mystery in things. Once you perceive it, you will begin to comprehend it better every day. And you will come at last to love the whole world with an all-embracing love. Love the animals: God has given them the rudiments of thought and joy untroubled. Do not trouble it, don't harass them, don't deprive them of their happiness, don't work against God's intent. Man, do not pride yourself on superiority to the animals; they are without sin, and you, with your greatness, defile the earth by your appearance on it, and leave the traces of your foulness after you -- alas, it is true of almost every one of us! Love children especially, for they too are sinless like the angels; they live to soften and purify our hearts and, as it were, t guide us. Woe to him who offends a child! Father Anfim taught me to love children. The kind, silent man used often on our wanderings to spend the farthings given to us on sweets and cakes for the children. He could not pass by a child without emotion." (291)
  • "At some thoughts one stands perplexed, especially at the sight of men's sin, and wonders whether one should use force or humble love. Always decide to use humble love. If you resolve on that once for all, you may subdue the whole world. Loving humility is marvellously strong, the strongest of all things, and there is nothing else like it." (291-92)
  • "Every day and every hour, every minute, walk round yourself and watch yourself, and see that your image is a seemly one." (292)
  • "Remember particularly that you cannot be a judge of anyone." (293)
  • "If you can take upon yourself the crime of the criminal your heart is judging, take it at once, suffer for him yourself, and let him go without reproach." (293)
  • "__If all men abandon you and even drive you away by force, then when you are left alone fall on the earth and kiss it, water it with your tears and it will bring forth fruit even though no one has seen or heard you in your solitude. Believe to the end, even if all men went astray and you were left the only one faithful; bring your offering even then and praise God in your loneliness.__ And if two of you are gathered together -- then there is a whole world, a world of living love. Embrace each other tenderly and praise God, for if only in you two His truth has been fulfilled." (293-94)
  • "You are working for the whole, you are acting for the future. Seek no reward, for great is your reward on this earth: the spiritual joy which is only vouchsafed to the righteous man. Fear not the great nor the mighty, but be wise and ever serene. Know the measure, know the times, study that. When you are left alone, pray. Love to throw yourself on the earth and kiss it. Kiss the earth and love it with an unceasing, consuming love. Love all men, love everything. Seek that rapture and ecstasy. Water the earth with the tears of your joy and love those tears. Don't be ashamed of that ecstasy, prize it, for it is a gift of God and a great one; it is not given to many but only to the elect." (294)
  • "What is hell?" I maintain that it is the suffering of being unable to love. (294)
  • As is well known, the bodies of dead monks and hermits are not washed. (299)
  • "It shows God's judgment is not as man's." (304)
  • ...a shower of criticism... (305)
  • ...so great an ascetic, who prayed day and night (he even dropped asleep on his knees). (305)
  • Indeed, all his trouble came from the fact that he was of great faith. (309)
  • I am glad that my hero (Alyosha) showed himself not too reasonable at that moment, for any man of sense will always come back to reason in time, but, if love does not gain the upper hand in a boy's heart at such an exceptional moment, when will it? (311)
  • "I am not rebelling against my God; I simply 'don't accept his world.'" Alyosha suddenly smiled a forced smile. (312)
  • ...the slim, delicate, shy, timid, dreamy, and sad girl of eighteen from the chief town of the province, and much had happened since then. Little was known of the girl's history in the town and that little was vague. Nothing more had been learned during the last four years... (314)
  • And now after four years the sensitive, injured, and pathetic little orphan had become a plump, rosy beauty of the Russian type, a woman of bold and determined character, proud and insolent. She had a good head for business, was acquisitive, saving, and by fair means or foul had succeeded, it was said, in amassing a little fortune. There was only one point on which all were agreed. Grushenka was not easily to be approached... (315)
  • "Do send for candles!" said Rakitin, with the free-and-easy air of a most intimate friend, who is privileged to give orders in the house. (317)
  • "If you know too much, you'll get old too soon." (318)
  • Grushenka smiled dreamily, and a little cruel line showed in her smile. (320)
  • (Grushenka to Alyosha) "Would you believe it, I sometimes look at you and feel ashamed, utterly ashamed of myself." (321)
  • (Grushenka to Alyosha) "Once upon a time there was a peasant woman, and a very wicked woman she was. And she died and did not leave a single good deed behind. The devils caught her and plunged her into the lake of fire. So her guardian angel stood and wondered what good deed of hers he could remember to tell God; "She once pulled up an onion in her garden and gave it to a beggar woman." And God answered: "You take that onion then, hold it out to her in the lake, and let her take hold and be pulled out. And if you can pull her out of the lake, let her come to Paradise, but if the onion breaks, then the woman must stay where she is." The angel ran to the woman and held out the onion to her. "Come," said he, "catch hold and I'll pull you out." And he began cautiously pulling her out. He had just pulled her right out, when the other sinners in the lake, seeing how she was being drawn out, began catching hold of her so as to be pulled out with her. But she was a very wicked woman and she began kicking them. "I'm to be pulled out, not you. It's my onion, not yours." As soon as she said that, the onion broke. And the woman fell into the lake and she is burning there to this day. So the angel wept and went away.' So that's the story, Alyosha; I know it by heart, for I am that wicked woman myself." (323)
  • Grushenka was standing in the middle of the room; she spoke with heat and there were hysterical notes in her voice. (324)
  • "...You mustn't ask too much of human endurance, one must be merciful." (325)
  • He began quietly praying, but he soon felt that he was praying almost mechanically. Fragments of thought floated through his soul, flashed like stars, and went out again at once, to be succeeded by others. But yet there was a reigning in his soul a sense of the wholeness of things -- something steadfast and comforting -- and he was aware of it himself. Sometimes he began praying ardently, he longed to pour out his thankfulness and love... (330)
  • ...his soul, overflowing with rapture, yearned for freedom, space, openness. The vault of heaven, full of soft, shining stars, stretched vast and fathomless above him. The Milky Way ran in two pale streams from the zenith to the horizon. The fresh, motionless, still night enfolded the earth. The white towers and golden domes of the cathedral gleamed out against the sapphire sky. The gorgeous autumn flowers, in the beds round the house, were slumbering till morning. The silence of the earth seemed to melt into the silence of the heavens. The mystery of the earth was one with the mystery of the stars... (332-33)
  • Oh! in his rapture he was weeping even over those stars, which were shining to him from the abyss of space, and "he was not ashamed of that ecstasy." There seemed to be threads from all those innumerable worlds of God, linking his soul to them, and it was trembling all over "in contact with other worlds." He longed to forgive everyone and for everything, to beg forgiveness. Oh, not for himself, but for all men, for all and for everything. "And others are praying for me too," echoed again in his soul. But with every instant he felt clearly and, as it were, tangibly, that something firm and unshakable as that vault of heaven had entered into his soul. It was as though some idea had seized the sovereignty of his mind -- and it was for all his life and forever and ever. He had fallen on the earth a weak boy, but he rose up a resolute champion, and he knew and felt it suddenly at the very moment of his ecstasy. And never, never, his life long, could Alyosha forget that minute. (333)
  • In any case there was much simplicity on Mitya's part in all this, for, in spite of all his vices, he was a very simple-hearted man. (338)
  • "What terrible tragedies real life contrives for people," said Mitya, in complete despair. The perspiration was streaming down his face. (345)
  • Profound dejection clung about his soul like a heavy mist. A profound, intense dejection! (346)
  • He was that sort of jealous man who, in the absence of the beloved woman, at once invents all sorts of awful fancies of what may be happening to her and how she may be betraying him, but, when shaken, heartbroken, convinced of her faithlessness, he runs back to her, at the first glance of her face, her gay, laughing, affectionate face he revives at once, lays astride all suspicions, and with joyful shame abuses himself for his jealousy. (349)
  • ...Of course the reconciliation is only for an hour. For, even if the rival did disappear the next day, he would invent another one and would be jealous of him. And one might wonder what there was in a love that had to be so watched over, what a love could be worth that needed such strenuous guarding. But that the jealous will never understand. And yet among them are men of noble hearts. It is remarkable, too, that those very men of noble hearts, standing hidden in some cupboard, listening and spying, never feel the stings of conscience at that moment, anyway, thought they understand clearly enough with their "noble hearts" the shameful depths to which they have voluntarily sunk. (350)
  • As he worked out this new idea, Mitya was enchanted with it, but so it always was with him in all his undertakings, in all his sudden decisions. He gave himself up to every new idea with passionate enthusiasm. (352)
  • And yet he could not be quit of the past, of all that he had left behind and that tortured him. He felt that miserably, and the thought of it sank into his heart with despair. (378)
  • "Can one help loving one's own country?" he shouted. (392)
  • "I love you. I love only you. I'll love you in Siberia..." (408)
  • "That's just the way with mad fellows like that: 'I shall kill myself tomorrow, so I'll make merry till I die!" (421)
  • "...Would you consent to explain what motives precisely led you to such a sentiment of hatred for your parent?" (425)
  • ...the prosecutor pronounced deliberately, as though chiseling out each word separately. (437)
  • He had an absurd nightmarish feeling, as though he were out of his mind. (448)
  • "I admit that there is a certain distinction," said the prosecutor, with a cold smile. "But it's strange that you can see such a vital difference." (-) "Yes, I see a vital difference! Every man may be a scoundrel, and perhaps every man is a scoundrel, but not everyone can be a thief, it takes an arch-scoundrel to be that. Of, of course, I don't know how to make these fine distinctions... but a thief is lower than a scoundrel, that's my conviction." (455)
  • "...Oh, gentlemen, I tell you again, with a bleeding heart, I have learned a great deal this night. I have learned that it's not only impossible to live a scoundrel, but impossible to die a scoundrel... No, gentlemen, one must die honest..." Mitya was pale. His face had a haggard and exhausted look, in spite of his being intensely excited. (456)
  • "Let me tell you everything, so be it. I'll confess all my infernal wickedness, but to put you to shame, and you'll be surprised yourselves at the depth of ignominy to which a medley of human passions can sink." (457)
  • (Mitya) bent his head, and hid his face in his hands. The lawyers were silent. A minute later he raised his head and looked at them almost vacantly. His face now expressed complete, hopeless despair, and he sat mute and passive as though hardly conscious of what was happening. (...) The lawyers, too, looked very tired. It was a wretched morning, the whole sky was overcast, and the rain streamed down in bucketfuls. Mitya gazed blankly out of the window. (460)
  • She was very pale, she seemed to be cold, and wrapped herself closely in her magnificent black shawl. She was suffering from a slight feverish chill -- the first symptom of the long illness which followed that night. Her grave air, her direct earnest look and quiet manner made a very favorable impression on everyone. (466)
  • He felt more and more oppressed by a strange physical weakness. His eyes were closing with fatigue. (468)
  • "Tell me why it is those poor mothers stand there? Why are people poor? Why is the babe poor? Why is the steppe barren? Why don't they hug each other and kiss? Why don't they sing songs of joy? Why are they so dark from misery? Why don't they feed the babe? (-) And he felt that, though his questions were unreasonable and senseless, yet he wanted to ask just that, and he had to ask it in just that way. And he felt that a passion of pity, such as he had never known before, was rising in his heart, that he wanted to cry, that he wanted to do something for them all, so that the babe should weep no more, so that the dark-faced, dried-up mother should not weep, that no one should shed tears again from that moment, and he wanted to do it at once, at once, regardless of all obstacles, with all the recklessness of the Karamazovs. (469)
  • "And I'm coming with you. I won't leave you now for the rest of my life, I'm coming with you," he heard close behind him Grushenka's tender voice, thrilling with emotion. And his heart glowed, and he struggled forward towards the light, and he longed to live, to live, to go on and on, towards the new, beckoning light, and to hasten, hasten, now, at once! (469)
  • "Who put that pillow under my head? Who was so kind?" he cried, with a sort of ecstatic gratitude, and tears in his voice, as though some great kindness had been shown him. (469)
  • "...but of all, let it be settled here, now, of all I am the lowest reptile! I've sworn to amend, and every day I've done the same filthy things." (470)
  • With this idea he put on his wadded winter overcoat with its catskin fur collar, slung his satchel round his shoulder and, regardless of his mother's constantly reiterated entreaties that he would always put on galoshes in such cold weather, he looked at them contemptuously as he crossed the hall and went out with only his boots on. (483)
  • He was a rough-haired dog, of medium size, with a coat of a sort of lilac-grey color. He was blind in his right eye, and his left ear was torn. He whined and jumped, stood and walked on his hind legs, lay on his back with his paws in the air, rigid as though he were dead. (485)
  • ...Ilyusha looked on with the same suffering smile. (505)
  • ...stretched himself out in his bed and hid his face in the dog's shaggy coat. (506)
  • But though he assumed an unconcerned air as he talked, he still could not control himself and was continually missing the note he tried to keep up. (508)
  • "Oh, I've nothing against God. Of course, God is only a hypothesis, but... I admit that he is needed... for the order of the universe and all that... and that if there were no God he would have to be invented." (513)
  • "A socialist?" laughed Alyosha. "But when have you had time to become one? Why, I thought you were only 13?" (-) Kolya winced. (-) "In the first place I am not 13, but 14 in a fortnight," he flushed angrily, "and in the second place I am at a complete loss to understand what my age has to do with it? The question is what are my convictions, not what is my age, isn't it?" (-) "When you are older, you'll understand for yourself the influence of age on convictions." (513-14)
  • __'Show a Russian schoolboy,' he writes, 'a map of the stars, which he knows nothing about, and he will give you back the map the next day with corrections on it.' No knowledge and unbounded conceit -- that's what the German meant to say about the Russian schoolboy." (-) "Yes, that's perfectly right," Kolya laughed suddenly, "exactly so! Bravo the German! But he did not see the good side, what do you think? Conceit may be, that comes from youth, that will be corrected if need be, but, on the other hand, there is an independent spirit almost from childhood, boldness of thought and conviction, and not the spirit of these sausage makers, grovelling before authority... But the German was right all the same. Bravo the German! But Germans want strangling all the same." (515)
  • "I am awfully childish sometimes, and when I am pleased about anything I can't restrain myself..." (515)
  • "Oh, Karamazov, I am profoundly unhappy. I sometimes fancy all sorts of things, that everyone is laughing at me, the whole world, and then I feel ready to overturn the whole order of things." (516)
  • ...Grushenka had taken very ill and was ill for nearly 5 weeks. For one whole week she was unconscious. She was very much changed -- thinner and a little sallow(...) But to Alyosha her face was even more attractive than before, and he liked to meet her eyes when he went in to her. A look of firmness and intelligent purpose had developed in her face. There were signs of a spiritual transformation in her, and a steadfast, fine and humble determination that nothing could shake could be discerned in her. There was a small vertical line between her brows which gave her charming face a look of concentrated thought, almost austere at the first glance. There was scarcely a trace of her former frivolity. (522)
  • ...Madame Hohlakov suddenly looked arch and a charming, though enigmatic, smile played about her lips... (533)
  • "'Poets are all so irritable,' he said." (534)
  • (Alyosha to Lise) "You are in love with disorder?" (-) "Yes, I want disorder. I keep wanting to set fire to the house. I keep imagining how I'll creep up and set fire to the house on the sly; it must be on the sly. They'll try to put it out, but it'll go on burning. And I shall know and say nothing. Ah, what silliness! And how bored I am!" (539)
  • "He is always wandering about, dreaming. He says, 'Why live in real life, it's better to dream. One can dream the most delightful things, but real life is a bore.'" (539)
  • (Alyosha to Lise) "Aren't you ashamed to destroy yourself?" (541)
  • "Could two different people have the same dream?" (541)
  • She suddenly jumped from the couch, rushed to him and seized him with both hands. "Save me!" she almost groaned. "Is there anyone in the world I could tell what I've told you? I've told you the truth, the truth, I shall kill myself, because I loathe everything! I don't want to live, because I loathe everything! I loathe everything, everything. Alyosha, why don't you love me in the least?" she finished in a frenzy. (543)
  • It was quite late (days are short in November) when Alyosha rang at the prison gate. It was beginning to get dusk. (544)
  • "'But what will become of men then?' I asked him, 'without God and immortal life? All things are lawful then, they can do what they like?'" (547)
  • He walked across the room with a harassed air. (549)
  • "I am afraid! And what do I care if I spend 20 years in the mines, breaking out ore with a hammer? I am not a bit afraid of that -- it's something else I am afraid of now: that that new man may leave me. Even there, in the mines, underground, I may find a human heart in another convict and murderer by my side, and I may make friends with him, for even there one may live and love and suffer. One may thaw and revive a frozen heart in that convict, one may wait upon him for years, and at last bring up from the dark depths a lofty soul, a feeling, suffering creature; one may bring forth an angel, create a hero! There are so many of them, hundreds of them, and we are all to blame for them. Why as it I dreamed of that 'babe' at such a moment? 'Why is the babe so poor?' Because we are all responsible for all. For all the 'babes,' for there are big children as well as little children. All are 'babes.' I go for all, because someone must go for all. I didn't kill father, but I've got to go. I accept it. It's all come to me here, here, within these peeling walls. There are numbers of them there, hundreds of them underground, with hammers in their hands. Oh, yes, we shall be in chains and there will be no freedom, but then, in our great sorrow, we shall rise again to joy, without which man cannot live nor God exist, for God gives joy: it's his privilege -- a grand one. Ah, man should be dissolved in prayer! What should I be underground there without God? Rakitin's laughing! If they drive God from the earth, we shall shelter him underground. One cannot exist in prison without God; it's even more impossible than out of prison. And then we men underground will sing from the bowels of the earth a glorious hymn to God, with whom is joy. Hail to God and his joy! I love him!" (-) Mitya was almost gasping for breath as he uttered his wild speech. He turned pale, his lips quivered, and tears rolled down his cheeks. (-) "Yes, life is full, there is life even underground," he began again. "You wouldn't believe, Alexey, how I want to live now, what a thirst for existence and consciousness has sprung up within these peeling walls." (549-50)
  • Ivan had become remarkably indifferent to his comforts of late, and very fond of being alone. He did everything for himself in the one room he lived in, and rarely entered any of the other rooms in his abode. (560)
  • Though Smerdyakov spoke without haste and obviously controlling himself, yet there was something in his voice, determined and emphatic, resentful and insolently defiant. He stared impudently at Ivan. A mist passed before Ivan's eyes for the first moment. (-) "How? What? Are you out of your mind?" (-) "I'm perfectly in possession of all my faculties." (570)
  • Smerdyakov took the rag from his eyes. Every line of his puckered face reflected the insult he had just received. (570)
  • The cool evening air refreshed him. There was a bright moon in the sky. A nightmare of ideas and sensations thrilled his soul. (573)
  • There was evidently not space enough for his drunken verbosity and Mitya not only filled the margins but had written the last line right across the rest. (574)
  • "He'll end in madness..." (575)
  • ...his relations with Katerina Ivanovna became acutely strained. They were like two enemies in love with one another. (575)
  • He was conscious of this and fully recognized it to himself. (575)
  • (Smerdyakov to Ivan) "You are very clever. You are fond of money, I know that. You like to be respected, too, for you're very proud; you are far too fond of female charms, too, and you mind most of all about living in undisturbed comfort, without having to depend on anyone -- that's what you care most about. You won't want to spoil your life forever by taking such a disgrace on yourself. You are like Fyodor Pavlovich, you are more like him than any of his children; you've the same soul as he had." (587)
  • Such gentlemen of accommodating temper and dependent position, who can tell a story, take a hand at cards, and who have a distinct aversion for any duties which may be forced upon them, are usually solitary creatures, either bachelors or widowers. Sometimes they have children, but if so, the children are always being brought up at a distance, at some aunt's; to whom these gentlemen never allude in good society, seeming ashamed of the relationship. They gradually lose sight of their children altogether, thought at intervals they receive a birthday or Christmas letter from them and sometimes even answer it. (590)
  • "Your nerves are out of order," observed the gentleman, with a carelessly easy, though perfectly polite, air. (594)
  • The great aim of his life was to be a man of advanced ideas. (612)
  • He felt(...) rather strongly about the Karamazov case, but from a social, not a personal standpoint. He was interested in it as a social phenomenon, in its classification and its character as a product of our social conditions, as typical of the national character, and so on. (612)
  • "...I must mention in parenthesis, though, that..." (632)
  • But the jealous woman's heart was burning, and she did not care what she did. (635)
  • "...If there is one of the sons that is like Fyodor Pavlovich in character, it is Ivan Fyodorovich." (648)
  • "...and Karamazov always lives in the present." (664)
  • "...Two extremes, gentlemen of the jury, remember that Karamazov can contemplate two extremes and both at once." (667)
  • "We laugh, but what must the prisoner be feeling?" (672)
  • "Besides, in another man's hand a crust always seems larger..." (679)
  • "You see, gentlemen of the jury, psychology is a two-edged weapon. Let me turn the other edge now and see what comes of it." (679)
  • "I asked just now what does 'father' mean, and exclaimed that it was a great word, a precious name. But one must use words honestly, gentlemen, and I venture to call things by their right names: such a father as old Karamazov cannot be called a father and does not deserve to be. Filial love for an unworthy father is an absurdity, an impossibility. Love cannot be created from nothing: only God can create something from nothing." (690)
  • "Fathers, provoke not your children to wrath," the apostle writes, from a heart glowing with love. (690)
  • "...and let us say plainly, the father is not merely he who begets the child, but he who begets it and does his duty by it." (691)
  • "The conventional answer to this question is: 'He begot you, and you are his flesh and blood, and therefore you are bound to love him.' The youth involuntarily reflects: 'But did he love me when he begot me?' he asks, wondering more and more. 'Was it for my sake he begot me? He did not know me, not even my sex, at that moment, at the moment of passion, perhaps, inflamed by wine, and he has only transmitted to me a propensity to drunkenness - that's all he's done for me... Why am I bound to love him simply for begetting me when he has cared nothing for me all my life after?'" (691-92)
  • 'Drive nature out of the door and it will fly in at the window...' (692)
  • "Let the son stand before his father and ask him, 'Father, tell me, why must I love you? Father, show me that I must love you,' and if that father is able to answer him and show him good reason, we have a real, normal, parental relation, not resting on mystical prejudice, but on a rational, responsible, and strictly humanitarian basis. But if he does not, there's an end to the family tie. He is not a father to him, and the son has a right to look upon him as a stranger, and even an enemy. Our tribune, gentlemen of the jury, ought to be a school of true and sound ideas." (692)
  • "Better acquit 10 guilty men than punish one innocent man! Do you hear, do you hear that majestic voice from the past century of our glorious history? (...) the Russian court does not exist for punishment only, but also for the salvation of the criminal! Let other nations think of retribution and the letter of the law, we will cling to the spirit and the meaning -- the salvation and the reformation of the lost." (694)
  • (Ilyusha to his father, before death): "'Father, when my grave is filled up crumble a piece of bread on it so that the sparrows may fly down; I shall hear and it will cheer me up not to be lying alone.'" (713)
  • It was an old and rather poor church; many of the ikons were without settings; but such churches are the best for praying in. (713)
  • "Ah, children, ah, dear friends, don't be afraid of life! How good life is when one does something good and just!" (718)
  • (last line) "Hurrah for Karamazov!" (718)
sep 6 2020 ∞
sep 6 2020 +