Clavis Libri

Term

Everything is permitted

In Russian, всё позволено (vsyo pozvoleno), "everything is permitted" (our translation), is the formula Rakitin draws from Ivan's thesis, that without immortality there is no virtue, and which Mitya repeats with naive conviction. Ivan does not disown it before Alyosha; Smerdyakov charges Ivan with the same lesson when he confesses the crime, and the devil takes it up in the form всё дозволено (vsyo dozvoleno), "everything is lawful", which he ends with "and that's it".

Where It Appears

Quotes

If there is no immortality of the soul, then there is no virtue, so everything is permitted.

Book II: An untimely meeting, Rakitin, summing up the theory Ivan upheld in the cell

I thought, brother, when I left, that I had at least you in the world [...] and now I see that there is no room for me even in your heart, my dear hermit. I do not renounce the formula "everything is permitted", and so, for that, you will renounce me, yes, yes?

Book V: Pro and Contra, Ivan to Alyosha, at the end of the tavern conversation

For God there is no law! 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 it!

Book XI: Ivan Fyodorovich, the devil to Ivan, on the night of Smerdyakov's confession