Karamazov Quotes

“Reading a book about something can be an obstacle to doing it because it gives you the impression that you are doing what you are only thinking about doing. It is tempting to remain in the comfortable theater of our imagination instead of the real world, to fall in love with the idea of becoming a saint and loving God and neighbor instead of doing the actual work, because the idea makes no demands on you. It is like a book on a shelf. But, as Dostoyevsky says, 'love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing compared to love in dreams' (The Brothers Karamazov).”

— Peter Kreeft

“The truly great books are flawed: The Brothers Karamazov is unwieldy in structure; a present-day editor would probably want to cut the Grand Inquisitor scene because it isn't necessary to the plot. For me The Brothers Karamazov is one of the greatest novels ever written, and this is perhaps because of, rather than in spite of, its human faults.”

— Madeleine L'Engle

“Because I'm a Karamazov. Because when I fall into the abyss, I go straight into it, head down and heels up, and I'm even pleased that I'm falling in just such a humiliating position, and for me I find it beautiful.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

“Though I do not believe in the order of things, still the sticky little leaves that come out in the spring are dear to me, the blue sky is dear to me, some people are dear to me, whom one loves sometimes, would you believe it, without even knowing why; some human deeds are dear to me, which one has perhaps long ceased believing in, but still honors with one's heart, out of old habit ...
Ivan Karamazov”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

“Why, the whole world of knowledge is not worth that child's prayer to 'dear, kind God'! I say nothing of the sufferings of grown-up people, they have eaten the apple, damn them, and the devil take them all! But these little ones!
The Brothers Karamazov
Ivan to Alyosha, on the suffering and torture of children,
Book V - Pro and Contra, Chapter 4 - Rebellion.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

“There is only one salvation for you: take yourself up, and make yourself responsible for all the sins of men. For indeed it is so, my friend, and the moment you make yourself sincerely responsible for everything and everyone, you will see at once that it is really so, that it is you who are guilty on behalf of all and for all. Whereas by shifting your own laziness and powerlessness onto others, you will end by sharing in Satan's pride and murmuring against God.
The Brothers Karamazov
Book VI - The Russian Monk, Chapter 3 - Conversations and Exhortations of Father Zosima.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

“Never in my life did I lend the unfortunate Dmitri Fyodorovich Karamazov (for he is unfortunate now, in any case) the sum of three thousand roubles today, or any other money, never, never! I swear to it by all that is holy in our world. Khokhlakov”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

“If they drive God from the earth, we shall shelter Him underground.
The Brothers Karamazov
Mitya (Dmitri) to Aloysha who visits him in prison, Book XI - Ivan, Chapter 4 - A Hymn and a Secret.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

“Your slave and enemy,
D.Karamazov”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

“That's my business, my dear boy, not yours. I am going on my own, because such is my will, while you were all dragged there by Alexei Karamazov, so there's a difference. And how do you know, maybe I'm not going to make peace at all? Silly expression!" "It wasn't Karamazov at all, not him at all. Some of us just started going there by ourselves, of course with Karamazov at first. And there was never anything like that, nothing silly. First one of us went, then another. His father was terribly glad to see us. You know, he'll just go out of his mind if Ilyusha dies. He can see Ilyusha's going to die. But he's so glad about us, that we made peace with Ilyusha. Ilyusha asked about you, but he didn't add anything more.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

“Oh, Karamazov, I am deeply unhappy.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

“The Brothers Karamazov is a joyful book.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

“Oh, Karamazov, I am deeply unhappy. I sometimes imagine God only knows what, that everyone is laughing at me, the entire world, and at such moments, at such moments I am quiet simply ready to annihilate the entire order of things.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

“In his heart there is the secret of renewal for all, the power that will finally establish the truth on earth, and all will be holy and will love one another, and there will be neither rich nor poor, neither exalted nor humiliated, but all will be the like the children of God, and the true kingdom of Christ will come.' That was the dream in Alyosha's heart." (Dostoyevsky, "The Brothers Karamazov: The Elders")”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

“Oh, Karamazov, I am profoundly unhappy. I sometimes fancy all sorts of things, that every one is laughing at me, the whole world, and then I feel ready to overturn the whole order of things.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

“I don't want harmony. From love for humanity I don't want it. I would rather be left with the unavenged suffering. I would rather remain with my unavenged suffering and unsatisfied indignation, even if I were wrong. Besides, too high a price is asked for harmony; it's beyond our means to pay so much to enter on it. And so I hasten to give back my entrance ticket, and if I am an honest man I am bound to give it back as soon as possible. And that I am doing. It's not God that I don't accept, Alyosha, only I most respectfully return him the ticket.
-Ivan Karamazov”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

“Karamazov, we love you! a voice, which seemed to be Kartashov's, exclaimed irrepressibly.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

“If they drive God from earth, we shall shelter him underground - Dmitri Karamazov”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

“Well, let's go! And we go like this now, hand in hand." "And eternally so, all our lives hand in hand! Hurrah for Karamazov!" Kolya cried once more ecstatically, and once more all the boys joined in his exclamation.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

“A few days earlier, in front of his guests at his own birthday celebration, this man had started smashing his own crockery and tearing his and his wife's clothes, because he was not offered enough vodka; then he went on to break every stick of furniture in his house and smash all the windows, and he did it all for the "beauty" of the gesture, as Mr. Karamazov had just now.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

“475Oh, if you were the kind of man I am ... I loved the shame of depravity. I loved cruelty ... In a word
a Karamazov!”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

“The first book that really knocked me out was the 'Brothers Karamazov.' I read it when I was a senior in high school.”

— Robert Hass

“To accept what is bitter; acceptance must not be allowed to project itself on to the bitterness and lessen it; otherwise the force and purity of the acceptance are proportionally lessened. For the object of the acceptance is to taste what is bitter, as such, and not anything else. (St. Thomas on the suffering of Christ.)-To say like Ivan Karamazov: nothing can possibly make up for a single tear from a single child. And yet to accept all tears, and the countless horrors which lie beyond tears. To accept these things not simply in so far as they may admit of compensations, but in themselves. To accept that they should exist, simply because they do exist.
To accept that event because it exists, and by this acceptance to love God through and beyond it. To accept that it should exist, because it does exist, what exactly does this mean? Is it not simply to recognize that it is?
When one loves God through and beyond evil as such, it is indeed God whom one loves.”

— Simone Weil

“In this world, there is no absolute good, no absolute evil," the man said. "Good and evil are not fixed, stable entities, but are continually trading places. A good may be transformed into an evil in the next second. And vice versa. Such was the way of the world that Dostoevsky depicted in The Brothers Karamazov. The most important thing is to maintain the balance between the constantly moving good and evil. If you lean too much in either direction, it becomes difficult to maintain actual morals. Indeed, balance itself is the good.”

— Haruki Murakami

“But how do you see you?" she asked.
"Ever read The Brothers Karamazov?" I asked.
"Once, a long time ago."
"Well, toward the end, Alyosha is speaking to a young student named Kolya Krasotkin. And he says, Kolya, you're going to have a miserable future. But overall, you'll have a happy life."
Two beers down, I hesitated before opening my third.
"When I first read that, I didn't know what Alyosha meant," I said. "How was it possible for a life of misery to be happy overall? But then I understood, that misery could be limited to the future."
"I have no idea what you're talking about."
"Neither do I," I said. "Not yet.”

— Haruki Murakami

“The Brothers Karamazov,”

— Haruki Murakami

“It turns out that the famous dictum, associated with Dostoevsky's Ivan Karamazov, can run both ways: yes, without God everything is theoretically permissible ... but believers can find ways to use God to justify just about anything as well.”

— Brian D. McLaren

“The truly great books are always novels: 'Anna Karenina,' 'The Brothers Karamazov,' 'The Magic Mountain.' Just as with 'Shahnameh,' I browse these books from time to time to remember how a great book works on us or to teach my students at Columbia University.”

— Orhan Pamuk

“That day was turning out to be longer than The Brothers Karamazov.”

— Carlos Ruiz Zafón

“In Fyodor Dostoyevsky's great novel The Brothers Karamazov, there is a scene in which two people are talking about suffering. Ivan Karamazov is talking about there being any possibility that we can make sense of suffering, and here's what he says: "I believe like a child that suffering will be healed and made up for, that all the humiliating absurdity of human contradictions will vanish like a pitiful mirage, like the despicable fabrication of the impotent and infinitely small Euclidean mind of man, that in the world's finale, at the moment of eternal harmony, something so precious will come to pass that it will suffice for all hearts, for the comforting of all resentments, for the atonement of all the crimes of humanity, of all the blood that they've shed; that it will make it not only possible to forgive but to justify all that has happened."11”

— Timothy Keller

“I got on a Dostoyevsky kick right after college. I started with 'Crime and Punishment,' went on to 'The Possessed' and then 'The Brothers Karamazov' and 'The Idiot.'”

— Charlie Trotter

“If you want the meaning of families and life and religion and philosophy rolled into one package, all you need to read is 'The Brothers Karamazov.'”

— Charlie Trotter

“A central principle underlying Mrs Quinty's Rules for Writing is that you have to have a Beginning Middle and End. If you don't have these your Reader is lost. But what if Lost is exactly where the writer is? I asked her. Ruth, the writer can't be lost, she said, and then knew she'd said it too quickly and bit her lip knowing I was going to say something about Dad. She pressed her knees together and diverted into a fit of dry coughing. This, Dear Reader, is a river narrative. My chosen style is The Meander. I know that in The Brothers Karamazov (Book 1,777, Penguin Classics, London) Ippolit Kirillovich chose the historical form of narration because Dostoevsky says it checked his own exuberant rhetoric. Beginnings middles and ends force you into that place where you have to Stick to the Story as Maeve Mulvey said the night the Junior Certs were supposed to be going to the cinema in Ennis but were buying cans in Dunnes and drinking”

— Niall Williams

“There is one other book, that can teach you everything you need to know about life ... it's The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, but that's not enough anymore.”

— Kurt Vonnegut

“Long reflection on the condition of mankind as people
sentenced to death only leads to the justification of crime. Ivan simultaneously hates the death penalty
(describing an execution, he says furiously: "His head fell, in the name of divine grace") and condones
crime, in principle. Every indulgence is allowed the murderer, none is allowed the executioner. This
contradiction, which Sade swallowed with ease, chokes Ivan Karamazov.”

— Albert Camus

“I just can't imagine my life without Dostoevsky and The Brothers Karamazov. I can spin off of that and talk about Crime and Punishment and Tolstoy. I could talk about other novels, but for me it's Dostoevsky. His sheer size and grandeur, his sacramentality, his ecclesiology, and his sense of the human predicament are as powerful as it gets. Can't imagine not reading the Russians.”

— Gordon T. Smith