The only gain of civilisation for mankind is the greater capacity for variety of sensations – and absolutely nothing more.
The mystery of human existence lies not in just staying alive, but in finding something to live for.
I am alone, I thought, and they are everybody.
When he has lost all hope, all object in life, man becomes a monster in his misery.
There is no virtue if there is no immortality.
Love is such a priceless treasure that you can buy the whole world with it, and redeem not only your own but other people’s sins. Go, and do not be afraid.
Oh I’ve plenty of time, my time is entirely my own.
Drowning men, it is said, cling to wisps of straw.
If you were to destroy the belief in immortality in mankind, not only love but every living force on which the continuation of all life in the world depended, would dry up at once.
It is not possible to eat me without insisting that I sing praises of my devourer?
Men do not accept their prophets and slay them, but they love their martyrs and worship those whom they have tortured to death.
It seems, in fact, as though the second half of a man’s life is made up of nothing, but the habits he has accumulated during the first half.
Be the sun and all will see you.
Lying is a delightful thing for it leads to the truth.
If everything on earth were rational, nothing would happen.
Man is tormented by no greater anxiety than to find someone quickly to whom he can hand over that great gift of freedom with which the ill-fated creature is born.
The more conscious I was of goodness and of all that was ’sublime and beautiful,’the more deeply I sank into my mire and the more ready I was to sink in it altogether.
Walking along the crowded row He met the one he used to know.
If someone proved to me that Christ is outside the truth, and that in reality the truth were outside of Christ, then I should prefer to remain with Christ rather than with the truth.
It’s not God that I don’t accept, Alyosha, only I most respectfully return him the ticket.
Man is sometimes extraordinarily, passionately, in love with suffering...