Setting opposing ideas or words side by side, so that one illuminates the other through contrast.
In The Brothers Karamazov
it is quite possible that both things happened, that is, that he rejoiced in his own liberation and wept for the liberator, all together.
Liberation and liberator, laughter and weeping, joy and grief appear side by side in the same sentence. The contrast is not undone: the narrator keeps it to show that Fyodor feels both things at once.
the more I love humanity in general, the less I love people in particular, that is, one by one, as individuals.
Book II: An untimely meeting, Elder Zosima, quoting a doctor, to Madame Khokhlakova
Dreamy love craves a quick deed, soon satisfied, and for everyone to look at it. One even gives one's life, provided it does not last long, is accomplished at once, as on a stage, and everyone looks on and praises. Active love, on the contrary, is work and perseverance, and for some, perhaps, a whole science.
Book II: An untimely meeting, Elder Zosima to Madame Khokhlakova
tell whoever sent you that this rag does not sell its honor!
it is not God that I do not accept, understand me well, what I do not accept is the world created by Him, the world of God, and I cannot agree to accept it.
Book V: Pro and Contra, Ivan to Alyosha, in the tavern
the whole world of knowledge is then not worth these little tears of the baby to the little God.
But it was not miracles, again, that he needed, but only "supreme justice", which had been, in his view, violated, and by which his heart had been so cruelly and suddenly wounded.
Book VII: Alyosha, the narrator, explaining Alyosha's disturbance
I am not guilty! Of that blood I am not guilty! Of my father's blood I am not guilty... I wanted to kill, but I am not guilty! It was not I!
Book IX: The preparatory proceedings, Mitya, in Mokroye, on being accused
I accept the punishment, not because I killed him, but because I wanted to kill him, and perhaps I really would have done it...
Book IX: The preparatory proceedings, Mitya, on being arrested
you killed, you are the principal murderer, and I was only your helper, your faithful servant, your Likharda, and at your word I did what I did.
Book XI: Ivan Fyodorovich, Smerdyakov to Ivan, on the night of the confession
capable of embracing all contraries and of contemplating at once both abysses, the abyss above us, of the highest ideals, and the abyss below us, of the lowest and most fetid fall
Book XII: A judicial error, the prosecutor Hippolyte Kirillovich, in the speech for the prosecution
he who begot is not yet a father; a father is he who begot and has earned it.
Book XII: A judicial error, the lawyer Fetyukovich, in the speech for the defense
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