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Demons

Book by Fyodor Dostoevsky · 39 quotes · Introspection, Literary, Existential

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Demons Quotes

“There are seconds - they come only five or six at a time- when you suddenly feel the presence of an eternal harmony that has been fully attained. This is not something earthly. I'm not saying that it's heavenly, but that man in his earthly form cannot endure it. He must change physically or else die. It is a clear and unambiguous feeling. It's as if you suddenly have a sense of nature as a whole, and you suddenly say: yes, this is true. God, when he was creating the world, said at the end of each day of creation: "Yes, this is true, this is good." This... this is not deep emotion, but is simply joy. You don't forgive anything, because there's no longer anything to forgive. You don't really love - oh, this is higher than love! If it lasts longer than five seconds, your soul can't endure it and must disappear. In these five seconds I live an entire lifetime, and for them I will give my entire life, because it's worth it. In order to endure ten seconds, one must change physically. I think that man should stop giving birth. Why have children, why have evolution if the goal has been attained? In the Gospels it is said that in the resurrection there will be no childbirth, but all will be like God's angels. It's a hint. Is your wife giving birth?”

PhilosophyJoyReligiousEmotionEternityHarmonyIntrospectionMetaphysicalTranscendenceSpirituality Vs Religion
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“You ape, you're teasing me so as to get the better of me. Shut up, you can't understand anything. If there is no God, then l am God. You know, I never was able to understand this particular point of yours: why should you be God?' If God exists, then all will is his, and I can't escape his will. If he does not exist, then all will is mine, and I am obliged to proclaim self-will. 'Self-will? And why are you obliged?' 'Because all will has become mine. Can it really be that no one on this entire planet, once having put an end to God and having developed a belief in self-will, will dare to proclaim self-will, in the fullest possible sense? It's like a poor man who's received an inheritance and is frightened by it and doesn't dare come near the bag full of money, regarding himself as too feeble to possess it. I want to proclaim self-will. Even if I'm the only one, I'll do it.' 'So go ahead and do it.' I am obliged to shoot myself because my self-will in the fullest possible sense for me is to kill myself. "But look, you're not the only one to kill yourself; there are many suicides." "With good reason. But to do it without any reason, solely for self-will, I'm the only one.' 'You know what,' he observed irritably, "if I were in your place, to show self-will I would kill someone else, and not myself. You could become useful. I'll show you who, if you're not afraid. Then perhaps you won't have to shoot yourself today. We could reach an understanding." "To kill someone else would be the lowest point of my self-will, and that's where you reveal who you are completely. I'm not you: I want the highest point, and I'll kill myself." 'He's worked this out all by himself,' Pyotr Stepanovich muttered angrily. I am obliged to proclaim disbelief,' Kirillov was walking about the room. 'For me there is no higher idea than the non- existence of God. Human history is behind me. Man has done nothing but invent God in order to live without killing himself; that's the essence of world history to this point. I am the only one in world history who hasn't felt like inventing God for the allow first time. Let people find that out once and for all.”

PhilosophyAtheismIdentityDespairPsychologicalRebellionExistentialMetaphysicsIntrospectionSelf Will
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“Kirillov remained silent. 'You know what, in my opinion, your belief is even stronger than a priest's.' In whom? In Him? Listen.' Kirillov stopped pacing, and stared straight before him with a fixed and ecstatic look. 'Listen to a great idea. There was a certain day on earth, and in the centre of the earth stood three crosses. One man on a cross believed to such an extent that he said to another: "Today you will be with me in paradise." The day ended, both died, they went and they found nothing - neither paradise nor resurrection. What had been said proved unjustified. Listen: this man was the highest on the entire earth, he comprised that which allowed it to live. The entire planet, with everything on it, is nothing but madness without that man. There has never been one like Him, either before or after, even by virtue of a miracle. The miracle is that there never has been nor will there be another such man, ever. And if that's so, if the laws of nature didn't spare even This One, didn't even spare his miracle, but compelled even Him to live amidst a lie and to die for a lie, then it follows that the entire planet is a lie and rests on a lie and on a stupid joke. It follows that the very laws of the planet are a lie and a farce put on by the Devil. What's there to live for, answer me, if you are a man?”

PhilosophyBeliefReligiousDespairMadnessRadicalHuman ConditionExistentialIntrospectionMetaphysical
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“Now I did not say to you that I don't believe at all!' he finally shouted. 'I'm letting you know, purely and simply, that I'm an unhappy, boring book and nothing more, for the time being, for the time being. But let my name perish! You're what ... we're discussing, not me... I am a man without talent, and all I can do is spill my blood and nothing more, like any man without talent. Let my blood perish as well!”

PhilosophySufferingBeliefEmotionalDespairMortalityExistentialIntrospectionLiterarySelf Identity
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“There are seconds, they come only five or six at a time, and you suddenly feel the presence of eternal harmony, fully achieved. It is nothing earthly; not that it’s heavenly, but man cannot endure it in his earthly state. One must change physically or die. The feeling is clear and indisputable. As if you suddenly sense the whole of nature and suddenly say: yes, this is true. God, when he was creating the world, said at the end of each day of creation: ‘Yes, this is true, this is good.’ This … this is not tenderheartedness, but simply joy. You don’t forgive anything, because there’s no longer anything to forgive. You don’t really love—oh, what is here is higher than love! What’s most frightening is that it’s so terribly clear, and there’s such joy. If it were longer than five seconds—the soul couldn’t endure it and would vanish. In those five seconds I live my life through, and for them I would give my whole life, because it’s worth it.”

LoveLifeDeathJoyPossessionDemonsFyodor DostoevskyThe PossessedEternal Harmony
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“There are seconds, they only come five or six at a time, and you suddenly feel the presence of eternal harmony, fully achieved. It is nothing earthly; not that it’s heavenly, but man cannot endure it in his earthly state. One must physically change or die. The feeling is clear and indisputable. As if you suddenly sense the whole of nature and suddenly say: yes this is true. God, when he was creating the world, said at the end of each day of creation: ‘Yes this is true, this is good.’ This. . . this is not tenderheartedness, but simply joy. You don’t forgive anything, because there’s no longer anything to forgive. You don’t really love—oh, what is here is higher than love! What’s most frightening is that it’s so terribly clear and there’s such joy. If it were longer than five seconds—the soul couldn’t endure it and would vanish. In those five seconds I live my life through, and for them I would give my whole life, because it’s worth it.”

HappinessJoy
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“[...]it is necessary for a man to know and believe every moment that there is somewhere a perfect and peaceful happiness, for everyone and for everything … The whole law of human existence consists in nothing other than a man’s always being able to bow before the immeasurably great. If people are deprived of the immeasurably great, they will not live and will die in despair. The immeasurable and infinite is as necessary for man as the small planet he inhabits.”

GodHappinessFaithDespairPossessionHumankindDemonsFyodor DostoevskyThe Possessed
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“There's nothing more devious than one's own self, because no one will believe it. And, I admit I had wanted to play the fool, because a fool is easier than one's own self; but since a fool is an extreme, after all, and an extreme sparks curiosity, then I finally settled on my very own self. Well then, what is my very own self? A golden mean: neither stupid, nor intelligent, without any particular gifts, and "dropped from the moon", as the sensible people here say, isn't that so?”

PhilosophyWisdomHuman NatureIdentityFoolSelf AwarenessExistentialismIntrospectionGolden Mean
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“And do you know, do you know that mankind can live without the Englishman, it. An live without Germany, it can live only too well without the Russian man, it can live without science, without bread, and it only cannot live without beauty, for then there would be nothing at all to do in the world! The whole secret is here, the whole of history is here! Science itself would not stand for a minute without beauty—are you aware of that, you who are laughing?—it would turn into boorishness, you couldn’t invent the nail! . . . I will not yield!”

Beauty
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“This strong and rough man, whose feathers were constantly being ruffled, had suddenly softened and brightened. Something unusual and entirely unexpected had begun to stir in his soul. Three years of separation, three years of a broken marriage had dislodged nothing from his heart. And perhaps every day of those three years he had dreamed of her, of the beloved being who had once said 'I love you' to him. Knowing Shatov, I can say for certain that he would never have allowed himself even to dream that any woman could say 'I love you' to him. He was fiercely chaste and modest, regarded himself as a dreadful freak, hated his own face and character, compared himself to some monster who was fit only to be taken around and exhibited at fairs. As a consequence of all this, he valued honesty above all things and dedicated himself to his convictions to the point of fanaticism; he was sullen, proud, quick to anger and sparing with words.”

LovePsychologyEmotionalLongingConvictionVulnerabilityModestyIntrospectionLiteraryCharacter Study
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“This strong and rough man, whose feathers were constantly being ruffled, had suddenly softened and brightened. Something unusual and entirely unexpected had begun to stir in his soul. Three years of separation, three years of a broken marriage had dislodged nothing from his heart. And perhaps every day of those three years he had dreamed of her, of the beloved being who had once said 'I love you' to him. Knowing Shatov, I can say for certain that he would never have allowed himself even to dream that any woman could say 'I love you' to him. He was fiercely chaste and modest, regarded himself as a dreadful freak, hated his own face and character, compared himself to some monster who was fit only to be taken around and exhibited at fairs. As a consequence of all this, he valued honesty above all things and dedicated himself to his convictions to the point of fanaticism; he was sullen, proud, quick to anger and sparing with words. But now this single being who had loved him for two weeks (he had always, always believed that!), this being whom he had always regarded as immeasurably superior to himself despite his utterly sober understanding of her faults; this being whom he could forgive everything, everything (of which there really true, so that in his eyes he himself was guilty of everything could be absolutely no before her), this woman, this Marya Shatova, was suddenly question, for just the opposite was actual again in his house, before him again... this was almost impossible to understand!”

LovePsychologyEmotionalLongingConvictionVulnerabilityModestyIntrospectionLiteraryCharacter Study
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“Reason and science have always, today and from the very beginning of time, played a secondary and a subordinate part; and so they will to the end of time. People are formed and moved by quite a different force, a force that dominates and exercises its authority over them, the origin of which, however, is unknown and inexplicable. That force is the force of an unquenchable desire to go on to the end and, at the same time, to deny the existence of an end. It is the force of an incessant and persistent affirmation of its existence and a denial of death. It is the spirit of life, as the Scripture says, "rivers of living water", the running dry of which is threatened in Revelation. It is the aesthetic principle, as the philosophers call it, an ethical principle, with which they identify it, the "seeking of God", as I call it much more simply. The purpose of the whole evolution of a nation, in every people and at every period of its existence, is solely the pursuit of God, their God, their very own God, and faith in Him as in the only true one. God is the synthetic personality of the whole people, taken from its beginning to its end. There has never yet been a nation without a religion, that is to say, without the conception of good and evil. Every people has its own conception of good and evil and its own good and evil. When the conceptions of good and evil become general among many nations, then these nations begin to die out, and the very distinction between good and evil begins to get blurred and to vanish.”

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“[...] for the systematic shaking of the foundations, for the systematic corrupting of society and all principles; in order to dishearten everyone and make a hash of everything, and society being thus loosened, ailing and limp, cynical and unbelieving, but with an infinite yearning for some guiding idea and for self-preservation—to take it suddenly into their hands, raising the banner of rebellion, and supported by the whole network of fivesomes, which would have been active all the while, recruiting and searching for practically all the means and all the weak spots that could be seized upon.”

SocietyRevolutionPossessionRebellionDemonsFyodor DostoevskyThe PossessedPolitical Intrigues
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“what, for instance, were you telling me about charity? And yet the gratification derived from giving charity is an arrogant and immoral tell nothing gratification, the gratification a rich man takes in his riches, his power, and the comparison he makes between his importance and the importance of a poor man. Charity corrupts both the one who gives it and the one who receives it, and furthermore, it doesn't achieve its goal, because it only intensifies poverty. Lazy people who don't want to work throng around people who give, like gamblers around the gambling table, hoping to win. And meanwhile, the pitiful coins that are tossed their way Such trivial are insufficient for even a hundredth of what they need. Have you given away much in your lifetime? Perhaps eighty kopecks, no more, if you stop and think about it. Just try to remember the last time you gave something; it would be a good two years go, and perhaps four. You're just making a lot of noise and impeding the cause. In today's society charity should definitely be prohibited by law. In the new social order there will be no such thing as poor people.”

PhilosophyPoliticalMoralityCharityInequalityIntrospectionProvocationEconomic TheorySocial CriticismRadical Ideas
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“Not a single people,' he began, as if reading line for line and at the same time continuing to look threateningly at Stavrogin, 'not one people has ever yet organized itself according to the principles of science and reason. Never has there been a single example of that, except only for a brief moment, out of stupidity. Socialism, by its very nature, must be atheism, for it has specifically proclaimed, from its very first words, that it is an atheistic construct and is intentionally organized exclusively according to the principles of science and reason. Reason and science in the life of peoples always, now and from the beginning of time, have fulfilled merely a secondary and auxiliary function; and that will be their function until the end of time. Peoples are formed and moved by another force that rules and dominates them, but whose origin is unknown and inexplicable. This force is the force of an unquenchable desire to go on to the end, while at the same time denying the end. This is the force of a ceaseless and tireless affirmation of its own being and the denial of death. It is the spirit of life, as the Scriptures say, "of living water", the drying up of which is threatened in the Apocalypse. It is the aesthetic principle, as the philosophers say, the moral principle, as they also identify it. "The search for God", as I call it more simply. The goal of all movements of peoples, in every people and in every period of its existence, is nothing but a search for God, its own God, unquestionably its own, and faith in him as the only true one. God is the synthesis of the personality of an entire people, taken from its beginning to its end. It has never been the case that all or many peoples have had a single common God, but each has certainly had its own special one. It is a sign of a people's extinction when gods begin to be held in common. When the gods come to be held in common, then the gods die and so does faith in them, along with the peoples themselves. The stronger a people, the more singular its God. There has never yet been a people without religion, that is, without the concept of evil and good. Each people has its own concept of evil and good, and its own evil and good. When many different peoples begin to hold concepts of evil and good in common, then the peoples die out, and then the very difference between evil and good begins to blur and disappear.”

ReligionSpiritualityPoliticsSocietyMoralityPhilosophicalExistentialMetaphysicsIntrospectionCultural Identity
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“From under her relentless hatred of you, which is sincere and absolute, shines love at every moment and... madness... the most sincere and boundless love, and - madness! Conversely, from under the love she feels for me, also sincerely, there shines hatred at every moment - the greatest hatred! Until now I could never have imagined all these "metamorphoses".”

RelationshipsEmotionalMadnessPsychologicalComplexityParadoxIntrospectionDualityLove And HateLiterary
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“Schátov asegura que si en Rusia hay alguna vez revolución, ha de empezarse de manera irremisible por el ateísmo. Puede que tenga razón. Había allí un capitán con la barbita canosa, que estaba muy callado y no decía palabra; pero de pronto fue y se plantó en mitad de la habitación y, mire usted, en voz alta, cual si hablase consigo mismo: "Si no hay Dios, ¿qué capitán soy yo?". Cogió el gorro, abrió los brazos y se fue.”

RevoluciónAteísmo
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“- В Апокалипсиса ангелът се кълне, че вече няма да има време. - Знам. Това там е много вярно; ясно и точно. Когато човекът достигне щастието, няма да има вече време, защото не е нужно. Много вярна мисъл. - Къде ще го дянат? - Никъде няма да го дяват. Времето не е предмет, а идея. Ще угасне в ума.”

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“Do you know, do you know that mankind can still continue to live without the Englishman, can continue without Germany, can continue all too well without the Russian, can continue without science, can continue without bread - it is only without beauty that we cannot continue, for there will be nothing at all to do in the world! That's where the whole secret lies, that's where the whole of history lies! Science itself would not last a minute without beauty - do you know about that, you who are laughing now? - it would turn into loutishness, you wouldn't even be able to invent the nail!”

ArtPhilosophyScienceHumanityCultureBeautyEmotionalExistentialIntrospectionLiterary
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