Father,′ he asked, ‘are rich people stronger than anyone else on earth?’ ‘Yes Ilusha,’ I said, ’there are no people on earth stronger than the rich.
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 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.
Oh, as I stood above the Neva this morning at dawn I knew I was a villian.
The torments of a proud decision, a deep conscience! God, in whom he did not believe, and his truth were overcoming his heart, which still did not want to submit.
He could not pass by children without his soul being shaken: such is the man.
For it will come to pass that even the most corrupt of our rich men will finally be ashamed of his riches before the poor man, and the poor man, seeing his humility, will understand and yield to him in joy, and will respond with kindness to his gracious shame.
He precisely lays it to his and his colleagues credit that they have finally overcome freedom, and have done so in order to make people happy.
There are crimes that are truly uncomely. With crimes, whatever they may be, the more blood, the more horror there is, the more imposing they are, the more picturesque, so to speak, but there are crimes that are shameful, disgraceful, all horror aside, so to speak, even far too ungracious...
Every decent man of our time is and is bound to be a coward and a slave. This is his normal condition. I am deeply convinced of that. This is how he is constituted, and this is what he is meant to be.
Civilization merely develops man’s capacity for a greater variety of sensations, and... absolutely nothing else. And through the development of this capacity, man may yet come to find pleasure in the spilling of blood.
Anger was buried far too early in a young heart, which perhaps contained much good.
I swear, gentlemen, that to be too conscious is an illness – a real thorough-going illness.
Something new seemed to be accomplishing itself within him, and one of the things that went with it was a kind of craving for people.
Even then, if the cliff, chosen and cherished from long ago, had not been so picturesque, if it had been merely a flat, prosaic bank, the suicide might not have taken place at all.
Send me the article beforehand, don’t forget, and try and let it be free from nonsense. Facts, facts, facts. And above all, let it be short. Good-bye.
It may be that you ought to thank God; why, for all you know he may be preserving you for something. Be of great heart and fear less.
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.
As a general rule, people, even the wicked, are much more naive and simple-hearted than we suppose. And we ourselves are, too.
The only gain of civilisation for mankind is the greater capacity for variety of sensations – and absolutely nothing more.