Let her, if she will, forgive him her own suffering, her own extreme anguish as a mother, but she has no right to forgive the suffering of her mutilated child; even if the child himself forgives, she has no right! And if that is so, if the right to forgive does not exist, then where is harmony?

‘You’re like all of them,’ concluded Alyosha, ‘that is, you’re like a lot of people, only you don’t have to be like them, like everyone, that’s all.’ ‘Even in spite of the fact that everyone’s like that?’

the more absurd the approach, the closer one gets to the crux of the matter. Clarity in absurdity. Absurdity is direct and guileless, whereas the intellect is evasive and illusive. The intellect is a blackguard, but absurdity is undeviating and honourable.

The main thing is to abhor dishonesty, any kind of dishonesty, but above all, dishonesty with regard to your own self. Be aware of your dishonesty and ponder it every hour, every minute of the day. Never be squeamish, both with regard to yourself and others; what appears to you disgusting in yourself is cleansed by the very fact that you have

‘I could never understand how one could love one’s neighbour. In my opinion it’s precisely those who are near to us that it is impossible to love, and one can love only those who are distant from us.

Yet he loved people: it seems that he lived his whole life with an absolute faith in people, though no one ever thought of him as simple or naïve. There was something in him that said, and made you believe (and this was so throughout his life), that he did not wish to sit in judgement on others and would never take it upon himself to censure

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.

For the secret of human existence lies not only in living, but in knowing what to live for. Without a firm conviction of the purpose of living, man will not consent to live and will destroy himself rather than remain on earth, though he be surrounded by bread.

I want to stick to facts. I gave up trying to understand long ago. As soon as I feel I want to understand something I immediately have to renounce facts, whereas I have decided to stay true to facts…’