"The Idiot" Quotes
A young man's innocence and naivety lead to his struggles in navigating the complexities of society.
classics | Published in 1983
Quotes
Beauty will save the world.
It is better to be unhappy and know the worst, than to be happy in a fool's paradise.
Man is a mystery. It needs to be unravelled, and if you spend your whole life unravelling it, don't say that you've wasted time.
Do not let us forget the main object of life is to increase our own stock of goodness, and enjoy the happiness that comes from it.
How can you love a nothing? All is vanity.
To love someone means to see them as God intended them.
The idiot, for instance, might have had a very kind and attentive action performed for him, and the devil only knows why, but he felt nothing at the time and afterwards would go about for days and even years with a burden of remorse at the thought of the action, and with a sense of horror.
But man is a fickle and disreputable creature and perhaps, like a chess player, is interested in the process of attaining his goal rather than the goal itself.
If you want to overcome the whole world, overcome yourself.
A man who lies to himself, and believes his own lies, becomes unable to recognize truth, either in himself or in anyone else, and he ends up losing respect for himself and for others.
