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? An...
[to Jesus] You did not come down from the cross when they shouted to you, mocking and reviling you: Come down from the cross and we will believe that it is you. You did not come down because, again, y...
[The Devil] And me? I suffer, and still I do not live. I am an in an indeterminate equation. I am some sort of ghost of life who has lost all ends and beginnings, and I've finally even forgotten what...
Your poem was in praise of Jesus, not in blame of Him--as you meant it to be.
Young man, be not forgetful of prayer. Every time you pray, if your prayer is sincere, there will be new feeling and new meaning in it, which will give you fresh courage, and you will understand that...
You thirst for life, yet you yourself resolve life’s questions with a logical tangle. And how importunate, how impudent your escapades, yet at the same time how frightened you are! You talk nonsense,...
You long for life and try to settle the problems of life by a logical tangle. And how tiresome, how insolent your outbursts are, and at the same time, how scared you are! You talk nonsense and are ple...
You laugh like a little child, but you think like a martyr.
You know, when children are silent and proud, and they try to keep back their tears when they are in great trouble and suddenly break down, their tears fall in streams.
You have long needed a change of air. Suffering, too, is a good thing. Suffer! Maybe Nikolay is right in wanting to suffer. I know you don't believe in it--but don't be over-wise; fling yourself strai...
You are really angry with me for not having appeared to you in a red glow, with thunder and lightning, with scorched wings
You are in the grip of a desire for martyrdom and self-sacrifice; conquer this desire as well, set aside your pages and your intention--and then you will overcome everything. You will put to shame all...
Yet, I didn't understand that she was intentionally disguising her feelings with sarcasm; that was usually the last resort of people who are timid and chaste of heart, whose souls have been coarsely a...
Yes, a man in the nineteenth century must and morally ought to be pre-eminently a characterless creature; a man of character, an active man is pre-eminently a limited creature.
Yes, I'm glum, I'm continually closed. I often want to leave society. I may also do good to people, but often I don't see the slightest reason for doing good to them. And people are not at all so beau...
Would he purge his soul from vilenessAnd attain to light and worth,He must turn and cling for ever,To his ancient Mother Earth.
Without a stable conception of the object of life, man would rather destroy himself though he had bread in abundance.
Why, I certainly won’t leave you, Stepan Trofimovich, I’ll never leave you, sir!’ She seized his hands and clasped them in hers, and pressed them to her heart as she looked at him with tears in her ey...
Why is it—as I've noticed, Stepan Trofimovitch whispered to me once, why is it that all these desperate socialists and communists are at the same time such incredible skinflints, so avaricious, so kee...
Why is it that even the best of men always seem to hide something from other people and to keep something back? Why not say straight out what is in one's heart, when one knows that one is not speaking...