Sublime

If at that time it had occurred to someone to ask, looking at him, what this fellow was interested in, and what was most often on his mind, it would really have been impossible to tell from looking at him.

Surely it’s impossible, I think, that the devils will forget to drag me down to their place with their hooks when I die.

It’s not a question of suffering for someone’s benefit, but simply, ‘one must suffer.’ If they suffer at the hands of the authorities, so much the better.

If we’re to come to love a man, the man himself should stay hidden, because as soon as he shows his face—love vanishes.”

and that if there is and has been any love on earth up to now, it has come not from natural law but solely from people’s belief in their immortality.

The peasants have vodka, the educated young people, shut out from activity, waste themselves in impossible dreams and visions and are crippled by theories; Jews have sprung up and are amassing money, and all the rest give themselves up to debauchery.

Et si vous souhaitez comprendre pourquoi, lisez Crime et Châtiment, de Dostoïevski, sans doute le plus grand roman jamais écrit, dans lequel Raskolnikov, le personnage principal, décide de prendre son athéisme véritablement au sérieux, commet un crime qu’il justifie de « bienveillant », et en paie le prix. Vous n’avez rien d’athée dans vos actes, e

It would be interesting to know what it is men are most afraid of. Taking a new step, uttering a new word is what they fear most. . . . But I am talking too much. It’s because I chatter that I do nothing. Or perhaps it is that I chatter because I do nothing.