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Demons

Book by Fyodor Dostoevsky · 13 quotes · Introspection, Literary, Existential

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Demons Quotes

“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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“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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“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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