Nothing is more seductive for man than his freedom of conscience, but nothing is a greater cause of suffering.
No, not immeasurably: you have abilities, but there’s a great deal you don’t understand, because you’re a low person.
No, it was not the money that I valued—what I wanted was to make all this mob of Heintzes, hotel proprietors, and fine ladies of Baden talk about me, recount my story, wonder at me, extol my doings, a...
Most likely not, but he believed solely because he desired to believe and possibly he fully believed in his secret heart, even when he said: I do not believe till I see.
May your sky always be clear, may your dear smile always be bright and happy, and may you be for ever blessed for that moment of bliss and happiness which you gave to another lonely and grateful heart...
Man only likes counting his grief, he doesn't count his happiness. But if he were to count properly, he'd see that there's enough of both lots for him.
Man is unhappy because he doesn't know he's happy. It's only that.
Man is stupid, you know, phenomenally stupid; or rather he is not at all stupid, but he is so ungrateful that you could not find another like him in all creation. I, for instance, would not be in the...
Lunatics! Vain creatures! They don't believe in God, they don't believe in Christ! Why, you are so eaten up with pride and vanity that you'll end up by eating one another, that's what I prophesy.
Listen, Kirillov stopped, gazing before him with fixed, ecstatic eyes. Listen to a big idea: There was one day on earth, and in the middle of the earth stood three crosses. One on a cross believed so...
Life is given to me only once, and never will be again—I don't want to sit waiting for universal happiness. I want to live myself; otherwise it's better not to live at all.
Just take a look around you: Blood is flowing in rivers and in such a jolly way you’d think it was champagne.
It was a marvelous night, the sort of night one only experiences when one is young. The sky was so bright, and there were so many stars that, gazing upward, one couldn't help wondering how so many whi...
In any case civilisation has made mankind if not more bloodthirsty, at least more vilely, more loathsomely bloodthirsty.
In a morbid condition of the brain, dreams often have a singular actuality, vividness, and extraordinary semblance of reality.
I love her with all my soul. Why, she is a child! She's a child now — a real child. Oh! you know nothing about it at all, I see.And are you assured, at the same time, that you love Aglaya too?Yes — ye...
I know that my youth will triumph over everything - every disillusionment, every disgust with life. I’ve asked myself many times whether there is in in the world any despair that would overcome this f...
I am too young and I've loved you too much.
I am forty years old now, and you know forty years is a whole lifetime; you know it is extreme old age. To live longer than forty years is bad manners, is vulgar, immoral. Who does live beyond forty?...
However, do you know what? I am convinced that fellows like me who live in dark cellars must be kept under restraint. They may be able to live in their dark cellars for forty years and never open thei...