The Brothers Karamazov

It is not God that I do not accept, Alyosha. I merely most respectfully return Him the ticket. Too high a price is asked for harmony; it is beyond our means to pay so much to enter on it.

Nothing has ever been more insupportable for a man and a human society than freedom. Instead of taking possession of men's freedom, Thou didst increase it, and burdened the spiritual kingdom of mankind with its sufferings for ever.

There is only one means of salvation: make yourself responsible for all men's sins. As soon as you make yourself responsible in all sincerity for everything and for everyone, you will see at once that this is really so, and that you are in fact to blame for everyone and for all things.

Love all God's creation, the whole of it and every grain of sand. Love every leaf, every ray of God's light. Love the animals, love the plants, love everything. If you love everything, you will perceive the divine mystery in things.

Beauty is a terrible and awful thing. It is terrible because it has not been fathomed, for God sets us nothing but riddles. Here the boundaries meet and all contradictions exist side by side. Here the devil is struggling with God, and the battlefield is the heart of man.

Above all, do not lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others.

Once upon a time there was a peasant woman and a very wicked woman she was. And she died and did not leave a single good deed behind. Her guardian angel remembered that she had once pulled up an onion and given it to a beggar woman.

Love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing compared with love in dreams. Love in dreams is greedy for immediate action, rapidly performed and in the sight of all. But active love is labour and fortitude.

I want to be there when everyone suddenly understands what it has all been for. All the religions of the world are built on this longing, and I am a believer.

You must know that there is nothing higher and stronger and more wholesome and good for life in the future than some good memory, especially a memory of childhood, of home. If a man carries many such memories with him into life, he is safe to the end of his days.