Drive nature out of the door and it will fly in at the window

And so these refined parents rejected their five-year-old girl to all kinds of torture. They beat her, kicked her, flogged her, for no reason that they themselves knew of. The child’s whole body was covered...

I understand, of course, what an upheaval of the universe it will be when everything in heaven and earth blends in one hymn of praise and everything that lives and has lived cries aloud: ‘Thou...

Remember young man, unceasingly,’ Father Paissy began, without preface, ‘that the science of this world, which has become a great power, has, especially in the last century, analysed everything divine handed down to us in...

Compassion is the chief law of human existence.

For men are made for happiness, and any one who is completely happy has a right to say to himself, ‘I am doing God’s will on earth.’ All the righteous, all the saints, all the...

No man lives, can live, without having some object in view, and making efforts to attain that object. But when object there is none, and hope is entirely fled, anguish often turns a man into...

Rakitin was dishonest and was decidedly unaware of it; that, on the contrary, knowing that he wouldn’t steal money from the table, he ultimately considered himself a man of the highest integrity.

[T]hat they may believe you, you must say it as obscurely as possible, just like that, simply in hints. You must only give them a peep of the truth, just enough to tantalize them. They’ll...

If I had had the power to prevent my own birth I should certainly never have consented to accept existence under such ridiculous conditions.

A dream is a strange thing. Pictures appear with terrifying clarity, the minutest details engraved like pieces of jewelry, and yet we leap unawares through huge abysses of time and space. Dreams seem to be...

I invented adventures for myself and made up a life, so as at least to live in some way.

You see I kept asking myself then: why am I so stupid that if others are stupid—and I know they are—yet I won’t be wiser?

We are all happy if we but knew it.

But the conquest of fear was what fascinated them. The continual ecstasy of vanquishing and the consciousness that no one could vanquish them was what attracted them.

Love the animals, love the plants, love everything. If you love everything, you will perceive the divine mystery in things. Once you perceive it, you will begin to comprehend it better every day. And you...

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...

The whole work of man really seems to consist in nothing but proving to himself every minute that he is a man and not a piano key.

They suffer, of course… but then they live, they live a real life, not a fantastic one, for suffering is life. Without suffering what would be the pleasure of it?

Sincere and unspiteful laughter is mirth, but where is there any mirth in our time, and do people know how to be mirthful?… A man’s mirth is a feature that gives away the whole man,...

I am leaving now; but know, Katerina Ivanovna, that you indeed love only him. And the more he insults you, the more you love him. That is your strain. You precisely love him as he...

The sacrifice of life is, in many cases, the easiest of all sacrifices

A cultivated and decent man cannot be vain without setting a fearfully high standard for himself, and without despising and almost hating himself at certain moments.

Entre as recordações de cada pessoa, há coisas que ela não conta para qualquer um, somente para os amigos. Há também aquelas que ela não conta nem para os amigos, somente para sim mesma, e...

I will put up with any mockery rather than pretend that I am satisfied when I am hungry.

Man is a mystery. It needs to be unravelled, and if you spend your whole life unravelling it, don’t say that you’ve wasted time. I am studying that mystery because I want to be a...

It’s God that’s worrying me. That’s the only thing that’s worrying me. What if He doesn’t exist? What if Rakitin’s right -that it’s an idea made up by men? Then, if He doesn’t exist, man...

In the first place I spent most of my time at home, reading. I tried to stifle all that was continually seething within me by means of external impressions. And the only external means I...

I am a fool with a heart but no brains, and you are a fool with brains but no heart; and we’re both unhappy, and we both suffer.

Oh literature is a wonderful thing, Varenka, a very wonderful thing: I discovered that from being with those people the day before yesterday. It is a profound thing. It strengthens people’s hearts and instructs them,…...

My brother asked the birds to forgive him: that sounds senseless, but it is right; for all is like an ocean, all is flowing and blending; a touch in one place sets up movement at...

How good life is when one does something good and just!

It was a wonderful night, such a night as is only possible when we are young, dear reader.

Crime? What crime? … My killing a loathsome, harmful louse, a filthy old moneylender woman … and you call that a crime?

Do you know I don’t know how one can walk by a tree and not be happy at the sight of it? How can one talk to a man and not be happy in loving...

Oh, those grumblers! They all take principles as motives and dare not follow their desires.

His mind is in bondage. He is haunted by a great, usolved doubt. He is one of those who doesn’t want millions, but an answer to their questions.

Duhet te qendrojne larg njeri-tjetri si fatkeqet ashtu dhe te varferit, keshtu nuk do te rendoheshin nga njeri-tjetri. Ju shkaktova aq shume fatkeqesi, qe s’i kishit patur kurre me pare ne jeten modeste te vetmitarit....

Jeżeli ludzkość bez wyjątku raz wyrzeknie się Boga (…), to sam przez się, bez ludożerstwa, upadnie cały stary światopogląd, przede wszystkim zaś, cała stara moralność, i nastąpi wszystko nowe. Ludzie zjednoczą się, by wziąć od...

I renounce the higher harmony altogether. It’s not worth the tears of that one tortured child who…prayed..with…unexpiated tears to ‘dear,kind God!

…Imagine that you yourself are building the edifice of human destiny with the object of making people happy in the finale, of giving them peace and rest at last, but for that you must inevitably...

Be near your brothers. Not just one, but both of them.

But profound as psychology is, it’s a knife that cuts both ways (…). I have purposely resorted to this method, gentlemen of the jury, to show that you can prove anything by it. It all...

How can you tell a man there’s nothing to do? I can’t imagine a situation in which there could ever be nothing to do! Do it for mankind and don’t worry about the rest. There’s...

I tell you that man has no more tormenting care than to find someone to whom he can hand over as quickly as possible that gift of freedom with which the miserable creature is born....

If you want to be respected by others, the great thing is to respect yourself. Only by that, only by self-respect will you compel others to respect you.

For, after all, you do grow up, you do outgrow your ideals, which turn to dust and ashes, which are shattered into fragments; and if you have no other life, you just have to build...

I am a wicked man… But do you know, gentlemen, what was the main point about my wickedness? The whole thing, precisely was, the greatest nastiness precisely lay in my being shamefully conscious every moment,...

Listen, in dreams and especially in nightmares, from indigestion or anything, a man sees sometimes such artistic visions, such complex and real actuality, such events, even a whole world of events, woven into such a...

We’re always thinking of eternity as an idea that cannot be understood, something immense. But why must it be? What if, instead of all this, you suddenly find just a little room there, something like...