Fyodor K.

Hell, Punishment

I, iv end

I can believe in hell without a ceiling. But if there is no ceiling then there can be no hooks, and without hooks it all breaks down.

Narrator on Alyosha

Faith Realism

I, v beg.

A. is a realist. Faith, in the realist, does not spring from the miracle. But the miracle from faith

Zosima on Fyodor

Guilt, Lying

II, ii end

The source of the buffoonery is his shame at himself. Lying to oneself causes loss of respect for oneself, which leads to coarse passions. Lying to oneself makes you easily offended, even to the point of taking pleasure at the offense.

Zosima to grieving Peasant Woman

Suffering and Renewal

II, iii mid.

Be not comforted. Consolation is not what you need. Weep and be not consoled, but weep. . . . But it will turn in the end into quiet joy, and your bitter tears will be only tears of tender sorrow that purifies the heart and delivers it from sin.

Love such a treasure that it can redeem not only your own sins but the sins of others.

Zosima to Madame K.

Faith and Love

II, iv mid.

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 hard to love particular humans and not just humanity in general.

Ivan K.

Church and State

II, v mid.

The state should be transformed into the church, for only the church can be a basis for law.

Ivan K.

God and Morality

II, vi mid.

Without God and immortality, all things are permitted.

Zosima to Ivan K.

Faith

II, vi mid.

If the question of God cannot be answered in the affirmative, it will never be answered in the negative. This is the peculiarity of your heart, to which all of your sufferings are due.

Zosima to Alyosha.

Suffering and Renewal

II, vii beg.

In sorrow seek happiness. Work unceasingly.

Rakitin to Alyosha.

God and Morality

II, vii mid.

His whole theory is a fraud! Humanity will find in itself the power to live for virtue even without believing in immortality. It will find it in love for freedom, for equality, for fraternity.

Dimitri to Alyosha.

Good and Evil

III, iii end

Beauty! I can't endure the thought that a man of lofty mind and heart begins with the ideal of the Madonna and ends with the ideal of Sodom. What's still more awful is that a man with the ideal of Sodom in his soul does not renounce the ideal of the Madonna, and his heart may be on fire with that ideal, genuinely on fire, just as in his days of youth and innocence. Yes, man is broad, too broad, indeed. I'd have him narrower. The devil only knows what to make of it! What to the mind is shameful is beauty and nothing else to the heart. Is there beauty in Sodom? Believe me, that for the immense mass of mankind beauty is found in Sodom. Did you know that secret? The awful thing is that beauty is mysterious as well as terrible. God and the devil are fighting there and the battlefield is the heart of man.

Dimitri to Alyosha.

Miracles and Providence

III, v end

I believe in miracles.. . . In a miracle of Divine Providence. God knows my heart. He sees my despair. He sees the whole picture. Surely He won't let something awful happen. Alyosha, I believe in miracles.

Smerdyakov.

Faith and Miracles

III, vi mid.

Soldier tortured to deny faith is not blamable, for if he had faith he could move mountains and free himself.

Fyodor .

Faith and Miracles

III, vi mid.

Are there even two such saints who could move mountains. None of us have faith because we don’t have enough time and the world is too much for us. One hasn’t time enough to sleep let alone to repent of one’s sins.

Fyodor .

God, Punishment

III, vii beg.

If there is no God the monks deserve death. I.: If truth prevailed Fyodor would deserve punishment. Fyoror asks I. and A. whether God exists. I. Says no; A. says yes.

Alyosha and Ivan

Judging the worth of a Life

III, ix end

A: Can any one decide whether someone is worthy to live? I: The question is already decided in man’s heart regardless of worth. Why lie?

Zosima.

Guilty for all

IV, i beg.

When he realises that he is not only worse than others, but that he is responsible to all men for all and everything, for all human sins, national and individual, only then the aim of our seclusion is attained. For know, dear ones, that every one of us is undoubtedly responsible for all men- and everything on earth, not merely through the general sinfulness of creation, but each one personally for all mankind and every individual man. . . . Only through that knowledge, our heart grows soft with infinite, universal, inexhaustible love. Then every one of you will have the power to win over the whole world by love and to wash away the sins of the world with your tears.

Fr. Paissy.

Science and Atheism

IV, i end

"Remember, young man, unceasingly," Father Paissy began, without preface, "that the science of this world, which has become a great power, has, especially in the last century, analysed everything divine handed down to us in the holy books. After this cruel analysis the learned of this world have nothing left of all that was sacred of old. . . . For even those who have renounced Christianity and attack it, in their inmost being still follow the Christian ideal, for hitherto neither their subtlety nor the ardour of their hearts has been able to create a higher ideal of man and of virtue than the ideal given by Christ of old.

Fyodor

Sin, Heaven

IV, ii beg.

I mean to go on in my sins to the end, let me tell you. For sin is sweet; all abuse it, but all men live in it, only others do it on the sly, and I openly. And so all the other sinners fall upon me for being so simple. And your paradise, Alexey Fyodorovitch, is not to my taste, let me tell you that; and it's not the proper place for a gentleman, your paradise, even if it exists.

Alyosha to Lise

Karamazov Life Force

V, i end.

"My brothers are destroying themselves," he went on, "my father, too. And they are destroying others with them. It's 'the primitive force of the Karamazovs,' as father Paissy said the other day, a crude, unbridled, earthly force. Does the spirit of God move above that force? Even that I don't know. I only know that I, too, am a Karamazov. . . . "And perhaps I don't even believe in God."

Ivan to Alyosha

Love of Life

V, iii beg.

I've been sitting here thinking to myself: that if I didn't believe in life, if I lost faith in the woman I love, lost faith in the order of things, were convinced, in fact, that everything is a disorderly, damnable, and perhaps devil-ridden chaos, if I were struck by every horror of man's disillusionment- still I should want to live. . . . I have a longing for life, and I go on living in spite of logic. Though I may not believe in the order of the universe, yet I love the sticky little leaves as they open in spring.. . . "Love life more than the meaning of it?"

Ivan to Alyosha

God and the World

V, iii end.

I accept God, but not the world. And so I accept God and am glad to, and what's more, I accept His wisdom, His purpose which are utterly beyond our ken; I believe in the underlying order and the meaning of life; I believe in the eternal harmony in which they say we shall one day be blended. . . . - but though all that may come to pass, I don't accept it. I won't accept it.

Ivan to Alyosha

Love is Impossible

V, iv beg.

Christ-like love is impossible. To love a man, he must be hidden. (Though one can love children close up.)

Ivan to Alyosha

God, The Suffering of Children

V, iv end.

Even if there is a higher harmony in which the suffering of children will be redeemed, it is not worth the price. Out of love of humanity, I must give my ticket back.

Alyosha to Ivan

Rebellion

V, iv end.

This is Rebellion. I.: One cannot live in Rebellion and I want to live.

Ivan to Alyosha

God, The Suffering of Children

V, iv end.

Imagine that you are creating a fabric of human destiny with the object of making men happy in the end, giving them peace and rest at last, but that it was essential and inevitable to torture to death only one tiny creature- that baby beating its breast with its fist, for instance- and to found that edifice on its unavenged tears, would you consent to be the architect on those conditions?

Alyosha to Ivan

Christ

V, iv end.

But there is a Being and He can forgive everything, all and for all, because He gave His innocent blood for all and everything. You have forgotten Him, and on Him is built the edifice, and it is to Him they cry aloud, 'Thou art just, O Lord, for Thy ways are revealed

Grand Inquisitor to Jesus

Christ, Freedom

V, v mid.

You had no right to come again. You left to preserve man’s freedom of faith. But we have taken their freedom. Man was made a rebel, but rebels cannot be happy.

Grand Inquisitor to Jesus

Christ, Freedom

V, v mid.

The first temptation of Christ. Men prefer bread over freedom. We have taken their freedom and given them bread.

Grand Inquisitor to Jesus

Christ, Freedom

V, v mid.

The second temptation of Christ: . In that Thou wast right. For the secret of man's being is not only to live but to have something to live for. Without a stable conception of the object of life, man would not consent to go on living, and would rather destroy himself than remain on earth, though he had bread in abundance.

It is too much to ask man to believe without miracles. We have corrected your work by Miracle, Mystery, and authority.

Grand Inquisitor to Jesus

Christ, Freedom, Science

V, v mid.

The third temptation of Christ: We have provided for the human craving for universal unity. Though science shall try to create a ideal state, it will fail and they will come to us to make the church a state on earth.

Grand Inquisitor to Jesus

Hell and Love of Humanity

V, v mid.

We take their free will and even allow them sin, but in doing so we take the sin on ourselves. We save all and not just the elect.

[Jesus kisses GI]

Alyosha and Ivan

Love of Life, Memory

V, v end.

But the little sticky leaves, and the precious tombs, and the blue sky, and the woman you love! How will you live, how will you love them?" Alyosha cried sorrowfully. "With such a hell in your heart and your head, how can you? No, that's just what you are going away for, to join them... if not, you will kill yourself, you can't endure it ".

"The strength of the Karamazovs- the strength of the Karamazov baseness." . . . "To sink into debauchery, to stifle your soul with corruption, yes?" . . . "'Everything is lawful,' you mean? Everything is lawful, is that it?" [Alyosha kisses Ivan]

"Listen, Alyosha," Ivan began in a resolute voice, "if I am really able to care for the sticky little leaves I shall only love them, remembering you. It's enough for me that you are somewhere here, and I shan't lose my desire for life yet.

Zosima to Alyosha.

Suffering and Renewal

VI, i beg.

(on Dimitri) Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.' Remember that. You, Alexey, . . . you will go forth from these walls, but will live like a monk in the world. You will have many enemies, but even your foes will love you. Life will bring you many misfortunes, but you will find your happiness in them, and will bless life and will make others bless it- which is what matters most.

Zosima’s brother Markel.

Guilty For All, Paradise on Earth

VI, iia beg.

All are responsible to all for all. I have sinned against all and everything for I did not love them enough, yet all forgive me, and that is heaven. One day is enough for man to know happiness.

Zosima to Alyosha.

God and Suffering, Job

VI, iib mid.

But the greatness of it lies just in the fact that it is a mystery- that the passing earthly show and the eternal verity are brought together in it. In the face of the earthly truth, the eternal truth is accomplished. . . .

It's the great mystery of human life that old grief passes gradually into quiet, tender joy. The mild serenity of age takes the place of the riotous blood of youth. I bless the rising sun each day, and, as before, my heart sings to meet it, but now I love even more its setting, its long slanting rays and the soft, tender, gentle memories that come with them, the dear images from the whole of my long, happy life- and over all the Divine Truth, softening, reconciling, forgiving! My life is ending, I know that well, but every day that is left me I feel how earthly life is in touch with a new infinite, unknown, but approaching life, the nearness of which sets my soul quivering with rapture, my mind glowing and my heart weeping with joy.

Zosima to peasant Boy.

God in all things

VI, iib mid.

Truly," I answered him, "all things are good and fair, because all is truth. . . . "It cannot but be so," said I, "since the Word is for all. All creation and all creatures, every leaf is striving to the Word, singing glory to God, weeping to Christ, unconsciously accomplishing this by the mystery of their sinless life.

Zosima at duel.

Guilty For All, Paradise on Earth

VI, iic mid.

Look around you at the gifts of God, the clear sky, the pure air, the tender grass, the birds; nature is beautiful and sinless, and we, only we, are sinful and foolish, and we don't understand that life is heaven, for we have only to understand that and it will at once be fulfilled in all its beauty, we shall embrace each other and weep. . . . All are responsible for all.

Mysterious Visitor to Zosima

Guilty For All, Paradise on Earth

VI, iic mid.

Life is Paradise. It is hidden in all of us if we but will to reveal it. . . . And that we are all responsible to all for all, apart from our own sins, you were quite right in thinking that, and it is wonderful how you could comprehend it in all its significance at once. And in very truth, so soon as men understand that, the Kingdom of Heaven will be for them not a dream, but a living reality. Before we realize this we must go through a period of isolation.

Zosima to Mysterious Visitor

Suffering and Renewal

VI, iic mid.

(Upon advising him to confess:) I took up the New Testament from the table, the Russian translation, and showed him the Gospel of St. John, chapter 12, verse 24: "Verily, verily, I say unto you, except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit."

Zosima to monks at his death.

Love

VI, iig end.

Love a man even in his sin, for that is the semblance of Divine Love and is the highest love on earth. Love all God's creation, the whole 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.

Loving humility is marvellously strong, the strongest of all things, and there is nothing else like it.

For we must love not only occasionally, for a moment, but for ever.

Zosima to monks at his death.

Connection to all things, Love

VI, iig end.

It may be senseless to beg forgiveness of the birds, but birds would be happier at your side- a little happier, anyway- and children and all animals, if you were nobler than you are now. It's all like an ocean, I tell you. Then you would pray to the birds too, consumed by an all-embracing love, in a sort of transport, and pray that they too will forgive you your sin. Treasure this ecstasy, however senseless it may seem to men.

Zosima to monks at his death.

Connection to all things, Mystery

VI, iig end.

For the Eternal judge asks of you what you can comprehend and not what you cannot. . . .

Much on earth is hidden from us, but to make up for that we have been given a precious mystic sense of our living bond with the other world, with the higher heavenly world, and the roots of our thoughts and feelings are not here but in other worlds. That is why the philosophers say that we cannot apprehend the reality of things on earth. . . .

God took seeds from different worlds and sowed them on this earth, and His garden grew up and everything came up that could come up, but what grows lives and is alive only through the feeling of its contact with other mysterious worlds. If that feeling grows weak or is destroyed in you, the heavenly growth will die away in you. Then you will be indifferent to life and even grow to hate it.

Zosima to monks at his death.

Judgment of Others

VI, iih end.

No man can judge another man. Forgive and believe to the end. Work without ceasing. Believe to the end, even if all men went astray and you were left the only one faithful; bring your offering even then and praise God in your loneliness. And if two of you are gathered together- then there is a whole world, a world of living love. Embrace each other tenderly and praise God, for if only in you two His truth has been fulfilled.

Avoid vengeance.

Zosima to monks at his death.

Love of this earth, Ecstacy

VI, iih end.

Love to throw yourself on the earth and kiss it. Kiss the earth and love it with an unceasing, consuming love. Love all men, love everything. Seek that rapture and ecstasy. Water the earth with the tears of your joy and love those tears. Don't be ashamed of that ecstasy, prize it, for it is a gift of God and a great one; it is not given to many but only to the elect.

Zosima to monks at his death.

Hell

VI, ii (i) end.

Hell is no longer being able to love. Even in hell accepting the love of the righteous, while recognizing the impossibility of repaying it, may allow a semblance of active love. You can even pray for suicides, for love is never an offence to God.