In a word, many flattering things were said of them. But there was some criticism. People spoke with horror of the number of books they had read.
Why didst Thou reject that last gift? Had Thou accepted that last offer of the mighty spirit, Thou wouldst have accomplished all that man seeks on earth – that is, someone to worship, someone to keep his conscience, and some means of uniting all in one unanimous and harmonious ant heap, because the craving for universal unity is the third and last anguish of men. Mankind as a whole has always striven to organize a universal state.
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.
You used to be brave once, sir, you used to say ‘Everything is permitted,’ sir, and now you’ve got so frightened!” Smerdyakov murmured, marveling.
Often a man is patient for several years, is resigned, endures most cruel punishment, and suddenly breaks out over some little thing, some trifle, a mere nothing.
The two time periods of the novel represent two stages in the evolution of the Russian intelligentsia: the sentimental, literary 1840s and the rational and utilitarian 1860s; the time of the liberals and the time of the nihilists.
Moreover, unready as you are, you don’t need such a great martyr’s cross. If you had killed father, I would regret that you rejected your cross. But you’re innocent, and such a cross is too much for you.
It seems to me that the whole of human life can be summed up in the one statement that man only exists for the purpose of proving to himself every minute that he is a man and not an organ.
I, for instance, have a great deal of AMOUR PROPRE. I am as suspicious and prone to take offence as a humpback or a dwarf.
They have science, but science contains nothing that does not come through the senses. The spiritual world, the nobler side of man’s being, has been rejected altogether, banned as it were triumphantly, perhaps even with hatred.
Dreams, as is known, are extremely strange: one thing is pictured with the most terrible clarity, with a jeweler’s thoroughness in the finish of its details, and over other things you skip as if without noticing them at all – for instance, over space and time. Dreams apparently proceed not from reason but from desire, not from the head but from the heart, and yet what clever things my reason has sometimes performed in sleep!
The chief thing is to love others like yourself, that’s the chief thing, and that’s everything; nothing else is wanted – you will find out at once how to arrange it all. And yet it’s an old truth which has been told and retold a billion times – but it has not formed part of our lives!
We keep imagining eternity as an idea that cannot be grasped, something vast, vast! But why must it be vast? Instead of all that, imagine suddenly that there will be one little room there, something like a village bathhouse, covered with soot, with spiders in all the corners, and that’s the whole of eternity. I sometimes fancy something of that sort.
Our little son is surely with the Lord God now, singing with the angels.
Doesn’t there, in fact, exist something that is dearer to almost every man than his own very best interests, or – not to violate logic – some best good... which is more important and higher than any other good, and for the sake of which man is prepared if necessary to go against all the laws, against, that is, reason, honour, peace and quiet, prosperity – in short against all those fine and advantageous things – only to attain that primary, best good which is dearer to him than all else?
What of the rest? Is it the fault of the rest of feeble mankind that they could not endure what the mighty endured? Is it the fault of the weak soul that it is unable to contain such terrible gifts? Can it be that you indeed came only to the chosen ones and for the chosen ones?
Yes, one day perhaps the leading intellects of Russia and of Europe will study the psychology of Russian crime, for the subject is worth it. But.
The dreamer can have no desires, for he has everything ; he is above desire, he is surfeited, he is himself the artist creating his life at every hour, guided only by his own inspiration.
It is true, perhaps, that this instrument which had stood the test of a thousand years for the moral regeneration of a man from slavery to freedom and to moral perfectibility may be a two-edged weapon and it may lead some not to humility and complete self-control but to the most Satanic pride, that is, to bondage and not to freedom. The.
There are moments when people love crime,” Alyosha said pensively.