Dmitri Karamazov Quotes

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

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.

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

I see the sun, and if I don't see the sun, I know it's there. And there's a whole life in that, in knowing that the sun is there." - Mitya

The depreciation of the rouble keeps me awake at night, Dmitri Fyodorovitch; people don't know that side of me

Who cannot sympathize with the imprisoned Dmitri Karamazov as he tries to make sense of what he has just learned from a visiting academic? "Imagine: inside, in the nerves, in the head — that is, these nerves are there in the brain ... (damn them!) there are sort of little tails, the little tails of those nerves, and as soon as they begin quivering ... that is, you see, I look at something with my eyes and then they begin quivering, those little tails ... and when they quiver, then an image appears ... it doesn't appear at once, but an instant, a second, passes ... and then something like a moment appears; that is, not a moment — devil take the moment! — but an image; that is, an object, or an action, damn it! That's why I see and then think, because of those tails, not at all because I've got a soul, and that I am some sort of image and likeness. All that is nonsense! Rakitin explained it all to me yesterday, brother, and it simply bowled me over. It's magnificent, Alyosha, this science! A new man's arising — that I understand.... And yet I am sorry to lose God!" Dostoevsky's prescience is itself astonishing, because in 1880 only the rudiments of neural functioning were understood, and a reasonable person could have doubted that all experience arises from quivering nerve tails. But no longer. One can say that the information-processing activity of the brain causes the mind, or one can say that it is the mind, but in either case the evidence is overwhelming that every aspect of our mental lives depends entirely on physiological events in the tissues of the brain.

There are moments in the life of old liars who have been play-acting all their lives when they are so carried away by the part they're playing that they actually do weep and tremble with excitement, in spite of the fact that at that very moment (or second later) they could have whispered to themselves: 'you're lying, you shameless old fool! Now, too, you're just acting a part in spite of all your "sacred" wrath and "sacred" moment of your wrath.' Dmitry frowned threateningly and looked at his father with indescribable contempt.

Jealous men forgive sooner than anyone else, and all women know it. The jealous man (having first made a terrible scene, of course) can and will very promptly forgive, for example, a nearly proven betrayal, the embraces and kisses he has seen himself, if, for example, at the same time he can somehow be convinced that this was 'the last time' and that his rival will disappear from that moment on . . . Of course the reconciliation will only last an hour, because even if the rival has indeed disappeared, tomorrow he will invent another, a new one, and become jealous of this new one. And one may ask what is the good of a love that must constantly be spied on, and what is the worth of a love that needs to be guarded so intensely? But that is something the truly jealous will never understand . . . It is also remarkable that these same lofty-hearted men, while standing in some sort of closet, eavesdropping and spying, though they understand clearly . . . all the shame they have gotten into of their own will, nevertheless . . . while standing in that closet, will not feel any pangs of remorse.

— A hora exata! — exclamou Fedor Pavlovitch. — E esse meu filho Dmitri sem vir! Peço que lhe perdoe, sagrado velho. — Aliocha estremeceu ao ouvir o «sagrado». — Eu sou muito pontual: nem minuto a mais nem a menos. Recordo sempre que a pontualidade é o ornamento dos reis.

It’s precisely the time,” cried Fyodor Pavlovich, “and my son Dmitri Fyodorovich still isn’t here! I apologize for him, sacred elder!” (Alyosha cringed all over at this “sacred elder.”) “I myself am always very punctual, to the minute, remembering that punctuality is the courtesy of kings.”3

yet to the very end he persisted in hoping that he would get that three thousand, that the money would somehow come to him of itself, as though it might drop from heaven. That is just how it is with people who, like Dmitri, have never had anything to do with money, except to squander what has come to them by inheritance without any effort of their own, and have no notion how money is obtained.