To talk nonsense in one's own way is almost better than to talk a truth that's someone else's;

one can always forgive a man for telling lies; lying's a harmless activity, because it leads to the truth

There are some encounters, even with people who are complete strangers to us, in which we begin to take an interest right from the very first glance, suddenly, before we have uttered a word

Everything lies in a man's hands, and if he lets it all slip past his nose it's purely out of cowardice

what are people most afraid of? Of doing something new, saying a new word of their own that hasn't been said before - that's what scares them most.

in order to be able to judge someone it's necessary to examine him for oneself, and at close quarters

Let my life go to hang, we say, just as long as those dear, beloved creatures of mine are happy.

When one is in a morbid state of health, one's dreams are often characterized by an unusual vividness and brilliance, and also by an extremely lifelike quality.

but with his whole being he suddenly felt that he no longer possessed any freedom of thought or of will, and that everything had suddenly been decided once and for all.

wouldn't one petty little crime like that be atoned for by all those thousands of good deeds?

On the other hand, the question of whether it was an illness that gave rise to the crime, or whether the crime itself was,

in order to act cleverly, cleverness alone is not enough

over utterly trivial things like that that clever people are caught. The cleverer a person is, the less he suspects he'll be caught out over some ordinary thing like that

People of genius are born one out of millions, while the great geniuses, the achievers of humanity, only come into being after many thousands of millions of people have passed through the earth

Pain and suffering are inevitable for persons of broad awareness and depth of heart. The really great men must, I think, have great sadness on earth

What if man - the whole human race in general, I mean - isn't really a villain at all? If that's true, it means that all the rest is just a load of superstition, just a lot of fears that have been put into people's heads, and there are no limits, and that's how it's meant to be!

crime is a protest against the craziness of the social system

When a man is poor he may still preserve the nobility of his inborn feelings, but when he's destitute he never ever can. If a man's destitute he isn't even driven out with a stick, he's swept out of human society with a broom, to make it as insulting as possible﻿

Ah, but it's possible to correct and channel nature, you know, old man - otherwise we would all just drown in a sea of prejudice. If it weren't for that, there would never have been a single great man.

As long as I can manage to preserve my will and my reason and exercise them over them to the fullest extent, then they in their turn will all be vanquished when it becomes necessary for them to acquaint themselves with every last, microscopic detail of the affair

Crime and Punishment focuses on the mental anguish and moral dilemmas of Rodion Raskolnikov, an impoverished ex-student in St. Petersburg who formulates and executes a plan to kill an unscrupulous pawnbroker for her cash. Raskolnikov argues that with the pawnbroker's money he can perform good deeds to counterbalance the crime, while ridding the world of a worthless vermin. He also commits this murder to test his own hypothesis that some people are naturally capable of such things, and even have the right to do them. Several times throughout the novel, Raskolnikov justifies his actions by comparing himself with Napoleon Bonaparte, believing that murder is permissible in pursuit of a higher purpose. Dostoyevsky conceived the idea of Crime and Punishment in the summer of 1865, having gambled away much of his fortune, unable to pay his bills or afford proper meals. At the time the author owed large sums of money to creditors, and was trying to help the family of his brother Mikhail, who had died in early 1864. Projected under the title The Drunkards, it was to deal "with the present question of drunkness ... [in] all its ramifications, especially the picture of a family and the bringing up of children in these circumstance, etc., etc." Once Dostoyevsky conceived Raskolnikov and his crime, now inspired by the case of Pierre François Lacenaire, this theme became ancillary, centering on the story of the Marmeladov family.

DOSTOYEVSKY

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