they may all be drunk at my place, but they’re all honest, and though we do lie-because I lie, too-in the end we’ll lie our way to the truth

I am a sick man… I am a spiteful man. I am an unpleasant man. I think my liver is diseased. However, I don’t know beans about my disease, and I am not sure what...

I tell you, the old-fashioned doctor who treated all diseases has completely disappeared, now there are only specialists, and they advertise all the time in the newspapers. If your nose hurts, they send you to...

It is easier for a Russian to become an Atheist, than for any other nationality in the world. And not only does a Russian ‘become an Atheist,’ but he actually BELIEVES IN Atheism, just as...

Sometimes it happens that the most insane thought, the most impossible conception, will become so fixed in one’s head that at length one believes the thought or the conception to be reality. Moreover, if with...

I believe he was feeling a bit nervous. Possibly it was my costume that took him aback. I was dressed quite well, even elegantly, and looked as if I belonged to the best society.

Note for a moment do I take you for a truth that is real,’ Ivan exclaimed in what even amounted to fury. ‘You are a falsehood, you are my illness, you are a ghost. Only...

Sentiría en el alma que te hubieras contaminado de esa enfermedad de moda que se llama ateísmo.

One’s own free unfettered choice, one’s own caprice, however wild it may be, one’s own fancy worked up at times to frenzy — is that very “most advantageous advantage” which we have overlooked, which comes...

Sou um sonhador, mal conheço a vida real, e um momento como este é tão raro de ser conseguido por mim, que me seria absolutamente impossível não continuar a evocá-lo sempre em meus sonhos.

Schoolboys are a merciless race, individually they are angels, but together, especially in schools, they are often merciless.

Strength, strength is what I need; nothing can be done without strength; and strength must be gained by strength.

Whoever infringes upon individual ‘charity,'” I began, “infringes upon man’s nature and scorns his personal dignity. But the organizing of ‘social charity’ and the question of personal freedom are two different questions and are not...

Man only likes to count his troubles; he doesn’t calculate his happiness.

…to return to their ‘native soil,’ as they say, to the bosom, so to speak, of their mother earth, like frightened children, yearning to fall asleep on the withered bosom of their decrepit mother, and...

Nature does not ask your permission, she has nothing to do with your wishes, and whether you like her laws or dislike them, you are bound to accept her as she is, and consequently all...

Love children especially, for they too are sinless like the angels; they live to soften and purify our hearts and, as it were, to guide us.

Repeat to yourself every day and as often as you can: ‘O Lord, have mercy on all those who will appear before You today.’ For every hour, every second, thousands of men leave this world...

Because I couldn’t bear my burden and have come to throw it on another: you suffer too, and I shall feel better! And can you love such a mean wretch?

If you wish to glimpse inside a human soul and get to know a man, don’t bother analyzing his ways of being silent, of talking, of weeping, of seeing how much he is moved by...

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.

There is something at the bottom of every new human thought, every thought of genius, or even every earnest thought that springs up in any brain, which can never be communicated to others, even if...

Equality lies only in human moral dignity. … Let there be brothers first, then there will be brotherhood, and only then will there be a fair sharing of goods among brothers.

There are certain things in a man’s past which he does not divulge to everybody but, perhaps, only to his friends. Again there are certain things he will not divulge even to his friends; he...

The Idiot. I have read it once, and find that I don’t remember the events of the book very well–or even all the principal characters. But mostly the ‘portrait of a truly beautiful person’ that...

Love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing compared to love in dreams.

And so will I here state just plainly and briefly that I accept God. But I must point out one thing: if God does exist and really created the world, as we well know, he...

Vi ne možete zamisliti kakva bol i srdžba vas obuzme kad veliku ideju, koju odavno i visoko poštujete, dohvate nevešti ljudi i izvuku je na ulicu pred glupake kao što su sami, i najedanput je...

I sometimes have moments of such despair, such despair … Because in those moments I start to think that I will never be capable of beginning to live a real life; because I have already...

We all come out from Gogol’s ‘Overcoat’.

Oh, I know, I know that heart, that wild but grateful heart, gentlemen of the jury! It will bow before your mercy; it thirsts for a great and loving action, it will melt and mount...

All we Karamazovs are such insects. And angel as you are, that insect lives in you, too, and will stir up a tempest in your blood. Tempests, because sensual lust is a tempest – worse...

I don’t like being with grown-up people. I’ve known that a long time. I don’t like it because I don’t know how to get on with them.

I swear, gentlemen, that to be too conscious is an illness — a real thorough-going illness. For man’s everyday needs, it would have been quite enough to have the ordinary human consciousness, that is, half...

It is not as a child that I believe and confess Jesus Christ. My hosanna is born of a furnace of doubt.

Anger was buried far too early in a young heart, which perhaps contained much good.

Indeed, in that sense we’re all rather often almost like mad people, only with the slight difference that the ‘sick’ are somewhat madder than we are, so that it’s necessary to draw a line here.

Po ç’pune ke ti, mor zoteri, me çizmet e mia te shqyera dhe me berrylat e mi te grisur?

Men are made for happiness, and he who is completely happy has the right to say to himself, ‘I am doing God’s will on earth.

But man seeks to worship what is established beyond dispute, so that all men would agree at once to worship it. For these pitiful creatures are concerned not only to find what one or the...

Pytałem przed chwilą co to jest ojciec i zawołałem, że to słowo wielkie, miano drogocenne. Ale słowa trzeba, panowie, używać uczciwie (…) „ojcowie, nie rozgoryczajcie dzieci waszych”! Albowiem wypełnijmy najpierw sami wolę Chrystusową, a wtedy...

Don’t let us forget that the causes of human actions are usually immeasurably more complex and varied than our subsequent explanations of them.

If one wanted to crush and destroy a man entirely, to mete out to him the most terrible punishment … all one would have to do would be to make him do work that was...

and what shall I have to dream of when I have been so happy in reality beside you!

Was it all put into words, or did both understand that they had the same thing at heart and in their minds, so that there was no need to speak of it aloud, and better...

She was very fond of thinking and getting at the truth of things, but was so far from being pedantic, so full of youthful ways that from the first moment one began to love all...

It seems to me that the whole of human life can be summed up in the one statement that man only exists for the purpose of proving to himself every minute that he is a...

You sensed that you should be following a different path, a more ambitious one, you felt that you were destined for other things but you had no idea how to achieve them and in your...

I am alone, I thought, and they are everybody.

Moreover, in order to understand any man one must be deliberate and careful to avoid forming prejudices and mistaken ideas, which are very difficult to correct and get over afterwards.