Lamentations comfort only by lacerating the heart still more. Such grief does not desire consolation. It feeds on the sense of its hopelessness. Lamentations spring only from the constant craving to re-open the wound.
Break what must be broken, once for all, that’s all, and take the suffering on oneself.
The more I love humanity in general, the less I love man in particular.
A new philosophy, a new way of life, is not given for nothing. It has to be paid dearly for and only acquired with much patience and great effort.
You can’t be angry with me, because I am a hundred times more severely punished than you, if only by the fact that I shall never see you again.
Beauty is a terrible and awful thing! It is terrible because it has not been fathomed, for God sets us nothing but riddles. Here the boundaries meet and all contradictions exist side by side.
Reason is the slave of passion.
It was a wonderful night, such a night as is only possible when we are young, dear reader.
Here my tears are falling, Nastenka. Let them flow, let them flow – they don’t hurt anybody. They will dry Nastenka.
Your hand is cold, mine burns like fire. How blind you are, Nastenka!
Bad people are to be found everywhere, but even among the worst there may be something good.
Speak of a wolf and you see his tail!
It is always so, when we are unhappy we feel more strongly the unhappiness of others; our feeling is not shattered, but becomes concentrated...
Love the animals. God has given them the rudiments of thought and joy untroubled. Don’t trouble it, don’t harass them, don’t deprive them of their happiness, don’t work against God’s intent.
The Russian soul is a dark place.
I’m drunk but truthful.
May you be for ever blessed for that moment of bliss and happiness which you gave to another lonely and grateful heart. Isn’t such a moment sufficient for the whole of one’s life?
The man who has a conscience suffers whilst acknowledging his sin. That is his punishment.
Man is stupid, phenomenally stupid.
On our earth we can only love withsuffering and through suffering.