You see I kept asking myself then: why am I so stupid that if others are stupid—and I know they are—yet I won't be wiser?

Do you understand, sir, do you understand what it means when you have absolutely nowhere to turn?" Marmeladov's question came suddenly into his mind "for every man must have somewhere to turn.

--you wouldn't have hurt me like this for nothing. So what have I done? How have I wronged you? Tell me.

I have in my own life merely carried to the extreme that which you have never ventured to carry even halfway ; and what's more, you've regarded your cowardice as prudence, and found comfort in deceiving yourselves. So that, in fact, I may be even more "alive" than you are. Do take a closer look!

By the experience of active love. Strive to love your neighbour actively and indefatigably. In as far as you advance in love you will grow surer of the reality of God and of the immortality of your soul. If you attain to perfect self-forgetfulness in the love of your neighbour, then you will believe without doubt, and no doubt can possibly enter your soul. This has been tried. This is certain.

It is not as a child that I believe and confess Jesus Christ. My hosanna is born of a furnace of doubt.

I myself will perhaps cry out with all the rest, looking at the mother embracing her child's tormentor: 'Just art thou, O Lord!' but I do not want to cry out with them. While there's still time, I hasten to defend myself against it, and therefore I absolutely renounce all higher harmony. It is not worth one little tear of even that one tormented child who beat her chest with her little fist and prayed to 'dear God' in a stinking outhouse with her unredeemed tears!