Nothing could be more absurd than moral lessons at such a moment! Oh, self-satisfied people: with what proud self-satisfaction such babblers are ready to utter their pronouncements! If they only knew to what degree I myself understand all the loathsomeness of my present condition, they wouldn't have the heart to teach me.
Fyodor DostoevskyAh, Father! Thatโs words and only words! Forgive! If heโd not been run over, heโd have come home today drunk and his only shirt dirty and in rags and heโd have fallen asleep like a log, and I should have been sousing and rinsing till daybreak, washing his rags and the childrenโs and then drying them by the window and as soon as it was daylight I should have been darning them. Whatโs the use of talking forgiveness! I have forgiven as it is!
Fyodor DostoevskyOr renounce life altogether! Accept fate obediently as it is, once and for all, and stifle everything in myself, renouncing any right to act, to live, to love.
Fyodor DostoevskyI love the sticky leaves in spring, the blue sky โ thatโs all it is. Itโs not a matter of intellect or logic, itโs loving with oneโs inside, with oneโs stomach.
Fyodor DostoevskyBut men love abstract reasoning and neat systematization so much that they think nothing of distorting the truth, closing their eyes and ears to contrary evidence to preserve their logical constructions.
Fyodor DostoevskyIt is precisely that requirement of shared worship that has been the principal source of suffering for individual man and the human race since the beginning of history. In their efforts to impose universal worship, men have unsheathed their swords and killed one another. They have invented gods and challenged each other: "Discard your gods and worship mine or I will destroy both your gods and you!"
Fyodor Dostoevsky