The Karamazov Brothers (Oxford World's Classics)

Filial love, if the father is not deserving of it, is an absurdity, an impossibility. Love cannot be born of nothing, God alone can create something out of nothing.

We have reached a stage at which we have surrounded ourselves with more things, but have less joy.

Every man ‘seen distinctly enough is abnormal, for the normal is only a name for the undifferentiated, for a failure to see the inescapable nuance.’19

The moment anybody comes close to me, his personality begins to overpower my self-esteem and intrude upon my freedom. Within one day I can end up hating the very best of men, some because they take too long over their dinner, others because they’ve caught a cold and keep blowing their noses. I become a misanthrope, he said, the minute I come into c

Dostoevsky’s achievement is that he is able to put words of hate into the mouths of basically hateful people without destroying the reader’s sympathy for them.

‘I think that if the devil didn’t exist and if man has created him, then he has created him in his own image and likeness.’

“Mostly you have to look after people like you do children, and some you have to look after like patients in hospital”…’

In most cases, people, even evil-doers, are much simpler and more naïve than we generally suppose. And the same is true of you and me.

We shall permit or forbid them to live with their wives and mistresses, to have children or not to have them—subject to their obedience—and they will submit to us cheerfully and willingly. They will bring us their most tormenting problems of conscience—everything, they will bring everything to us and we shall resolve everything, and they will accep