Brother, let me ask one thing more: has any man a right to look at other men and decide which is worthy to live?
He had often felt anguish before, and it would be no wonder if it came at such a moment, when he was preparing, the very next day, having suddenly broken with everything that had drawn him there, to make another sharp turn, entering upon a new, completely unknown path, again quite as lonely as before, having much hope, but not knowing for what, expecting much, too much, from life, but unable himself to define anything either in his expectations or even in his desires.
When you’re older, you will see yourself what significance age has upon convictions.
Absurdity of absurdities.
What a splendid thing is literature, what a splendid thing! It strengthens and instructs the heart of man. Literature is a sort of picture. It connotes at once passion, expression, fine criticism, good learning, and a document.
I remember once I came into his room alone, when no one was with him. It was a bright evening, the sun was setting and lit up the whole room with its slanting rays. He beckoned when he saw me, I went over to him, he took me by the shoulders with both hands, looked tenderly, lovingly into my face; he did not say anything, he simply looked at me like that for about a minute: “Well,” he said, “go now, play, live for me!” I walked out then and went to play.
My debauchery I undertook solitarily, by night, covertly, fearfully, filthily, with a shame that would not abandon me... I was then already bearing the underground in my soul.
Education has nothing whatever to do with moral deterioration; and if one must admit that it develops a resolute spirit among the people, that is far from being a defect.
And what aim in life is more important or sacred than a parental aim?
But the foolish children will have to learn some day that, rebels though they be and riotous from nature, they are too weak to maintain the spirit of mutiny for any length of time.
To this day it is as if I can still hear the back of her head hit the carpet.
Confinement, regulation, and excessive work have no effect but to develop in these men profound hatred, a thirst for forbidden enjoyment, and frightful recalcitration.
Do you know there is a limit of ignominy, beyond which man’s consciousness of shame cannot go, and after which begins satisfaction in shame?
There is a good deal of posturing here, of romantic frenzy, of wild Karamazovian unrestraint and sentimentality – yes, and also something else, gentlemen of the jury, something that cries out in the soul, that throbs incessantly in his mind, and poisons his heart unto death; this something is conscience, gentlemen of the jury, the judgment, the terrible pangs of conscience!
And why do you ask what can’t be answered? What’s the use of such foolish questions? How could it depend on my decision? Who has made me the judge to decide who ought to live and out ought not to live?
She said nothing, she only looked at me without a word. But it hurts more, it hurts more when they don’t blame!
There are some people who interest us immediately, at first glance, before a word is exchanged.
The latter are to lose their individuality and turn into something like cattle, and with this unlimited obedience attain, through a series of regenerations, a primordial innocence, something like the primordial paradise, although they will have to work.
Only a handful of people could be saved in all the world; these were the elect and clean, destined to begin a new race of humans and a new life, to renew and clean the earth, but no one saw these people anywhere; no one heard their words and voices.3.
When reason fails, the devil helps!” he thought with a strange grin. This chance raised his spirits extraordinarily.