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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.” — Fyodor Dostoevsky