Brothers Karamazov

some of my favorite quotes from BK so far, my words aren't necessary...

The awful thing is that beauty is mysterious as well as terrible. God and the devil are fighting there and the battleground is the heart of man. But a man always talks of his own ache. Listen now, let’s come to facts…

Alyosha “pierced his heart” by “living with him, seeing everything and blaming nothing.” Moreover, Alyosha brought with him something his father had never known before: a complete absence of contempt for him and a consistent kindness, a perfectly natural, unaffected devotion to the old man who deserved it so little. All this was a complete surprise to the old wretch who had dropped all family ties.

In his [Alyosha] fervent prayer he did not beseech God to lighten his darkness. He only thirsted for the joyous emotion, which always visited his soul after the praise and adoration, of which his evening prayer usually consisted.

“Why, why, had he (Alyosha) gone forth? Why had Father Zossima sent him into the world? Here in the hermitage was peace. Here was holiness. But out in the world there was confusion, there was darkness in which one lost one’s way…”

And in the very depths of that degradation I [Dmitri] begin a hymn of praise. Let me be accursed. Let me be vile and base, only let me kiss the hem of the veil in which my God is shrouded. Though I may be following the devil, I am thy son, O Lord, and I love thee. And I feel joy without which the world cannot stand.

What chance was there of peace? Were there not, on the contrary new grounds for hatred and hostility? And with whom was Alyosha to sympathize? And what was he to wish for each of them? He loved them both, but their desires were conflicting. He might go astray in this maze, and his heart could not endure uncertainty because his love was always of an active kind. He was incapable of passive love. If he loved anyone, he wanted at once to help him. And to do so he must know what he was aiming at. It was natural for him to help both Ivan and Dmitri. But instead of a definite aim, he found nothing but uncertainty on all sides. “It was lacerating,” as was just said. But what could he understand even in this laceration? He did not understand the first word in this perplexing maze.

Last week I [Katarina] learned that he [Dmitri] still needed money. My only object in all this was that he should know to whom to turn, and who was his true friend. No, he wouldn’t recognize that I am his truest friend; he regards me merely as a woman. I’ve been tormented all week, trying to think how to prevent him from being ashamed to face me because he spent that three thousand [Roubles]. Let him feel ashamed of himself, let him be ashamed of other people’s knowing, but not of my knowing. He can tell God everything without shame. Why is it he still does not understand how much I am ready to bear for his sake? Why, why doesn’t he know me? How can he not know me after all that has happened? I want to save him. Let him forget me as his fiancée…

Your life, Katerina, will be spent in painful brooding over your own suffering. But in the end that suffering will be softened and will pass into contemplation of the fulfillment of a bold and proud design. Yes proud it certainly is, and desperate in any case, but a triumph for you. And the consciousness of it will at last be a source of complete satisfaction and will make you resigned to everything else.

Your brother is in there with her now, not that dreadful brother [Dmitri] who was so shocking yesterday, but the other, Ivan. He is sitting with her talking. They are having a serious conversation. If you could only imagine what’s passing between them now- it’s awful. I [Katerina] tell you it’s lacerating; it’s like some incredible tale of horror. They are ruining their lives for no reason anyone can see. They both recognize it and revel in it. I’ve been watching for you! I’ve been thirsting for you! It’s too much for me.

But they have only analyzed the parts and overlooked the whole, and indeed their blindness is marvelous. Yet the whole still stands steadfast before their eyes, and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it. Has it not lasted nineteen years? Is it not still a living, a moving power in the individual soul and in the masses of people? It is still strong and living in the souls of atheists, who have destroyed everything! For even those who have renounced Christianity and attack it still follow the Christian ideal. And neither their subtlety nor the ardor of their hearts has been able to create a higher ideal of man and of virtue than the ideal given by Christ of old.

There is a remarkable picture by the painter Kramskoy, called "Contemplation." There is a forest in winter, and on a roadway through the forest, in absolute solitude, stands a peasant in a torn kaftan and bark shoes. He stands, as it were, lost in thought. Yet he is not thinking; he is "contemplating." If anyone touched him he would start and look at one as though awakening and bewildered. It's true he would come to himself immediately; but if he were asked what he had been thinking about, he would remember nothing. Yet probably he has, hidden within himself, the impression which had dominated him during the period of contemplation. Those impressions are dear to him and no doubt he hoards them imperceptibly, and even unconsciously. How and why, of course, he does not know either. He may suddenly, after hoarding impressions for many years, abandon everything and go off to Jerusalem on a pilgrimage for his soul's salvation, or perhaps he will suddenly set fire to his native village, and perhaps do both. There are a good many "contemplatives" among the peasantry.