Book I: The history of a family
sometimes it happens that he, who knows, carries within himself the core of the whole, while the other men of his time, all of them, by some passing wind, for some reason have detached themselves from him for a time…
Explanation and analysis
Before telling anything, the narrator asks the reader's leave. He will write Alyosha's life and calls him a hero, but confesses that he is not a great man, and anticipates the questions the reader will ask: what makes him notable, what he did, who knows him. He defines the hero as a strange type, an eccentric, and admits that strangeness usually hurts whoever asks for attention, because the eccentric is almost always only particularity and isolation.
Then he turns the argument around. The eccentric, who seems to be on the margins, may carry within himself the core of the whole, while the other men of his time, carried off by some passing wind, have for a time drifted away from him. The image places the center of an age in someone whom his contemporaries take for a side figure, and promises that the book will show the lost center where no one looks for it.
The text leaves two readings open. It may be the sincere praise of a narrator who loves his hero, or the caution of a chronicler who promises little so as not to be proven wrong. In either case, the novel begins with a wager, that the truth of the story lies in Alyosha, and it hands the proof to the reader: only by reading will he see whether the wager holds.
it is quite possible that there was both one thing and the other, that is, that he rejoiced at his own liberation and wept for the liberator, all at once.
Explanation and analysis
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go, get to the truth there and come back to tell me: it will be easier to go to the other world if one knows for certain what is there [...] for I feel you are the only man on earth who has not condemned me, my dear boy, I feel it, how could I not feel it!
Explanation and analysis
for the realist, faith is not born of the miracle, but rather the miracle of faith.
Explanation and analysis
Book II: An untimely meeting
That is why I am a buffoon, a buffoon from shame, great elder, from shame. It is only out of touchiness that I make a commotion.
Explanation and analysis
the more I love humanity in general, the less I love people in particular, that is, one by one, as individuals.
Explanation and analysis
Dreamy love craves a quick deed, soon satisfied, and for everyone to look on. One will even give up one's life, as long as 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 labor and perseverance, and for some, perhaps, an entire science.
Explanation and analysis
Forgive! Forgive everyone!
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If there is no immortality of the soul, then there is no virtue, and therefore everything is permitted.
Explanation and analysis
Book III: The sensualists
Because I am a Karamazov. Because if I am going to fly into the abyss, I will go straight, head down and feet up, and I am even content to fall in precisely that humiliating position, and I consider that beauty, for me.
Explanation and analysis
Here the devil fights with God, and the battlefield is the hearts of men.
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Whoever has stepped on the lowest rung will, in any case, surely step on the highest as well.
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God and immortality. Immortality is also in God.
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But in my desires, in this case, I reserve for myself complete freedom.
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Book IV: The disturbances
each of us is undoubtedly guilty before everyone and for everything on earth, not only for the common guilt of the world, but each one, alone, for all men and for every man on this earth.
Explanation and analysis
and for a decent man it is even inconvenient to go to your paradise, if it exists at all. As for me, one falls asleep and does not wake, and there is nothing more; remember me if you like, and if you do not like, let the devil carry you off. That is my philosophy.
Explanation and analysis
It cannot be that I have done nothing to you; you would not torment me like this for nothing. So what did I do, how am I guilty before you? Tell me.
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Tell whoever sent you that a rag does not sell its honor!
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Book V: Pro and Contra
It is not God I do not accept, understand this well; what I do not accept is the world created by Him, God's world, and I cannot agree to accept it.
Explanation and analysis
all the world of knowledge is then not worth these little tears of the baby to the little God.
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I do not want, after all, the mother to embrace the executioner who had the dogs tear her son to pieces! She has no right to forgive him!
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I hasten to return my entrance ticket [...] It is not God I do not accept, Alyosha; I merely return the ticket to Him, with the greatest respect.
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there are three forces, the only three forces on earth capable of conquering and holding forever the conscience of these weak rebels, for their happiness: these forces are miracle, mystery, and authority.
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he suddenly approaches the old man in silence and gently kisses his bloodless lips of ninety years. That is his whole answer.
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I thought, brother, when I left, that I had at least you in the world [...] and now I see that not even in your heart is there a place for me, my dear hermit. I do not disown the formula "everything is permitted," and so, for that reason, you will disown me, yes, yes?
Explanation and analysis
Book VI: A Russian monk
if the grain of wheat, falling into the earth, does not die, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.
Explanation and analysis
Mama [...] do not weep, life is a paradise, and we are all in paradise, only we do not want to know it, and if we did, tomorrow paradise would be all over the world.
Explanation and analysis
"Take by force or by humble love?" Always decide: "I will take by humble love." If you decide this once and for all, you will be able to conquer the whole world. Humble love is a terrible force, the strongest of all, and nothing can compare with it.
Explanation and analysis
the suffering of no longer being able to love.
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above all, remember that you cannot be a judge of anyone. For there can be no judge of a criminal on earth until the judge himself recognizes that he too is a criminal exactly like the one before him, and that perhaps he is, before all others, guilty of the crime of the one before him.
Explanation and analysis
Book VII: Alyosha
people love the fall of the righteous and his disgrace.
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But he did not need miracles, once more, but only the "supreme justice," which, in his view, had been violated, and with that his heart was wounded so cruelly and suddenly.
Explanation and analysis
Once upon a time there was a wicked, most wicked woman, and she died. And not a single virtue remained from her. [...] she, it is said, pulled an onion in the vegetable garden and gave it to a beggar woman. [...] As soon as she said this, the onion broke. And the woman fell into the lake and burns to this day. And the angel wept and went away.
Explanation and analysis
"Someone visited my soul at that hour."
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Book VIII: Mitya
I am a pickpocket, I am a scoundrel, and I do not want to begin a new life as a scoundrel.
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Lord, receive me with all my iniquity, but do not judge me. Let me pass without your judgment… Do not judge me, because I have condemned myself; do not judge me, because I love you, Lord!
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I execute myself for my whole life, I punish my whole life!
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Book IX: The preparatory proceedings
I am not guilty! Of this 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 me!
Explanation and analysis
Because if I keep silent, gentlemen, it is because here there is a shame for me. In the answer to the question of where I got this money there is contained for me a shame with which not even the murder and robbery of my father could be compared, if I had killed and robbed him.
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why do they not feed the little child?
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I accept the execution, not because I killed him, but because I wanted to kill him, and perhaps I actually would have done it…
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As he has just said, this is what you must believe! I know him: he can say any nonsense, out of fun or stubbornness, but against his conscience he never lies. He will tell the direct truth, this is what you must believe!
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Book X: Ilyusha's death
God is only a hypothesis... but... I acknowledge that He is necessary, for the order... for the order of the world and so on... and if He did not exist, it would be necessary to invent Him.
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in this vanity the devil himself has taken flesh, slipping into the whole generation, the devil himself.
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bury me beside our big stone, where we used to walk, and come see me there with Krasotkin, in the late afternoon... And Perezvon... And I will be waiting for you...
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I do not want a good boy! I do not want another boy!
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Book XI: Ivan Fyodorovich
It is the boy I will go for. Because everyone is guilty for everyone. The boy for everyone, because there are small children and big children. Everyone is a boy. I will go for everyone, because someone must go for everyone. I did not kill my father, but I must go. I accept!
Explanation and analysis
it was not you who killed our father, it was not you!
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you killed, you are the principal murderer, and I was only your accomplice, your faithful servant, your Lichard, and at your word I did what I did.
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that is what you really taught me; many times you told me then that if there is no infinite God, there is no virtue at all, and one need not have any.
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There is no law for God! Wherever God places Himself, there is God's place! Wherever I place myself, there at once will be the first place... "everything is permitted," and that's that!
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and he is me, Alyosha, myself. Everything in me that is low, vile, and contemptible! [...] I very much wanted him to be truly himself, and not me!
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Book XII: A judicial error
set your minds at ease, I am not mad, I am only a murderer!
Explanation and analysis
capable of embracing all opposites and of contemplating at the same time the two abysses, the abyss above us, of the highest ideals, and the abyss below us, of the lowest and foulest fall
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Whoever begot a child is not yet a father; a father is whoever begot and deserved it.
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but spare me, do not deprive me of my God; I know myself: I will rebel!
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Katya, I forgive you! Brothers, friends, spare the other one!
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Epilogue: Ilyusha's funeral
I love Russia, Alexei, I love the Russian God, even though I am a scoundrel myself!
Explanation and analysis
Papa dear, when they cover my grave, crumble on it a crust of bread, so the sparrows come; I will hear that they came, and it will be joyful for me to know that I am not lying alone.
Explanation and analysis
know, then, that there is nothing higher, stronger, healthier, or more useful for life from now on than some good memory, especially one brought from childhood, from the father's house.
Explanation and analysis
Without a doubt we shall rise again, without a doubt we shall see one another and tell each other, joyfully and happily, everything that happened.