"The Brothers Karamazov" Quotes

Above all, don't lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others.

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

I am a Karamazov. When I fall into the abyss, I go straight into it, head down and heels up, and I'm even pleased that I'm falling in just such a humiliating position, and for me I find it beautiful.

The mystery of human existence lies not in just staying alive, but in finding something to live for.

Love all God's creation, the whole of it and every grain of sand in it. Love every leaf, every ray of God's light. Love the animals, love the plants, love everything. If you love everything, you will perceive the divine mystery in things.

But how could you live and have no story to tell?

It's not God that I don't accept, Alyosha, only I most respectfully return him the ticket.

I love mankind, he said, 'but I find to my amazement that the more I love mankind as a whole, the less I love man in particular.'

You must know that there is nothing higher and stronger and more wholesome and good for life in the future than some good memory, especially a memory of childhood, of home.

Man is broad, too broad, indeed. I'd have him narrower.