The Karamazov Brothers (Oxford World's Classics)

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’ve got your head screwed on all right. The fire is burning in you now, but it’ll die down; you’ll get it out of your system and you’ll come back here. And I’ll be waiting for you, because I feel you’re the only person on earth who hasn’t condemned me, my dear boy, I really feel this, how can I fail to feel it!…’ And he began to snivel. He was m

Oh, in my poor, earthly, Euclidean mind I know only that suffering exists, that no one is to blame, that one thing leads to another just like that, that life goes on and things find their own equilibrium in the end—but then, that is just Euclidean nonsense, I know that, and when it comes down to it I can’t agree to live by it!

It is perhaps true, however, that this proven, thousand-year-old instrument for the moral regeneration of mankind, elevating him from slavery to freedom and moral perfection, could become a double-edged sword, and that some could be led not to humility and ultimate self-mastery, but, on the contrary, to utterly satanic pride—that is, not to freedom

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.

One can retain precious memories of even the worst families provided one’s soul is capable of seeking out what is precious.

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…’

We have reached a stage at which we have surrounded ourselves with more things, but have less joy.

‘Despite all the weirdness and incongruousness of the situations in which his characters are placed, despite the oddness of their behaviour and reasoning, [Dostoevsky’s characters] never cease to be living human beings. The reader may sometimes feel he has strayed into a lunatic asylum, but never into a museum of waxworks.