The Greatest Works of Dostoevsky: Crime and Punishment + The Brother's Karamazov + The Idiot + Notes from Underground + The Gambler + Demons (The Possessed / The Devils)

“Do you suppose that my tears, my entreaties, my illness, my possible death from grief, our poverty would have made him pause? No, he would calmly have disregarded all obstacles. And yet it isn’t that he doesn’t love us!”

It would be interesting to know what it is men are most afraid of. Taking a new step, uttering a new word is what they fear most. . . . But I am talking too much. It’s because I chatter that I do nothing. Or perhaps it is that I chatter because I do nothing.

He seemed to be trying in that latter stage to escape from a full and clear understanding of his position.

to escape the lot of those who have lived their whole life without finding their true selves in themselves.

I like them to talk nonsense. That’s man’s one privilege over all creation. Through error you come to the truth!

Tears and agonies would at least have been life.

But keep a good heart and have less fear! Are you afraid of the great expiation before you? No, it would be shameful to be afraid of it. Since you have taken such a step, you must harden your heart. There is justice in it. You must fulfil the demands of justice. I know that you don’t believe it, but indeed, life will bring you through. You will liv

all is in a man’s hands and he lets it all slip from cowardice,

“Listen,” he said, “you’re a first-rate fellow, but among your other failings, you’re a loose fish, that I know, and a dirty one, too. You are a feeble, nervous wretch, and a mass of whims, you’re getting fat and lazy and can’t deny yourself anything — and I call that dirty because it leads one straight into the dirt. You’ve let yourself get so sla

To go wrong in one’s own way is better than to go right in someone else’s. In the first case you are a man, in the second you’re no better than a bird.