If God does not exist, everything is permitted.

I want to suffer and be purified by suffering!

It is not possible to eat me without insisting that I sing praises of my devourer?

The world stands on absurdities, and without them perhaps nothing at all would happen.

Alyosha's heart could not bear uncertainty, for the nature of his love was always active. He could not love passively; once he loved, he immediately also began to help.

... active love is a harsh and fearful thing compared with the love in dreams. Love in dreams thirsts for immediate action, quickly performed, and with everyone watching. Indeed, it will go as far as the giving even of one's life, provided it does not take long but is soon over, as on stage, and eveyone is looking on and praising. Whereas active love is labor and persistence, and for some people, perhaps, a whole science.

Happiness does not lie in happiness, but in the achievement of it.