Why, the whole world of knowledge is not worth that child's prayer to 'dear, kind God'! I say nothing of the sufferings of grown-up people, they have eaten the apple, damn them, and the devil take the...
People with new ideas, people with the faintest capacity for saying something new, are extremely few in number, extraordinarily so, in fact.
The first category is always the man of the present, the second the man of the future. The first preserve the world and people it, the second move the world and lead it to its goal.
And He will judge and will forgive all, the good and the evil, the wise and the meek . . . And when He has done with all of them, then He will summon us. ‘You too come forth,’ He will say, ‘Come forth...
Oh, I have always been proud, I always wanted all or nothing! You see it was just because I am not one who will accept half a happiness, but always wanted all
I, for instance, was triumphant over everyone; everyone, of course, was in dust and ashes, and was forced spontaneously to recognise my superiority, and I forgave them all. I was a poet and a grand ge...
But I've still better things about children. I've collected a great, great deal about Russian children, Alyosha. There was a little girl of five who was hated by her father and mother, 'most worthy an...
Resentment-why, it is purification; it is a most stinging and painful consciousness!
Does it matter whether it was a dream or a reality, if the dream made known to me the truth?
Our historical pastime is the direct satisfaction of inflicting pain. There are lines in Nekrassov describing how a peasant lashes a horse on the eyes, 'on its meek eyes,' everyone must have seen it....
Oh, tell me, who first declared, who first proclaimed that man only does nasty things because he does not know his own real interests; and that if he were enlightened, if his eyes were opened to his r...
By the way, a Bulgarian I met lately in Moscow, Ivan went on, seeming not to hear his brother's words, told me about the crimes committed by Turks and Circassians in all parts of Bulgaria through fear...
And with love one can live even without happiness.
May it not be that he loves chaos and destruction (there can be no disputing that he does sometimes love it) because he is instinctively afraid of attaining his object and completing the edifice he is...
In Russia, drunks are our kindest people. Our kindest people are also the most drunk.
At that time I was only twenty-four years old. My life then was already gloomy, disorderly, and solitary to the point of savagery.
The worst of such stories is that the triumphant romancers can always be put to confusion and crushed by the very details in which real life is so rich and which these unhappy and involuntary story-te...
The Russian soul is a dark place.
Do you think it is a vain hope that one day man will find joy in noble deeds of light and mercy, rather than in the coarse pleasures he indulges in today -- gluttony, fornication, ostentation, boastin...
The instinct of self-preservation and the urge to self-destruction are equally strong in man! The Devil has equal a sway over humanity as God until a time still unknown to us.