brothers-karamazov
Best Thing: Reviewers often praise "The Brothers Karamazov" for its deep philosophical insights and complex character development, highlighting how it explores fundamental questions of morality, faith, and free will. Worst Thing: Some readers find the book's length and dense prose challenging, which can make it difficult to engage with the narrative fully, leading to a slower reading experience.
Kindle Highlights: The Brothers Karamazov
Highlights
Above all, avoid falsehood, every kind of falsehood, especially falseness to yourself. Watch — location: 1044 ^ref-48927
He sees everything; he sees them set the coffin down at His feet, sees the child rise up, and his face darkens. He knits his thick grey brows and his eyes gleam with a sinister fire. He holds out his finger and bids the guards take Him. And such is his power, so completely are the people cowed into submission and trembling obedience to him, that the crowd immediately makes way for the guards, and in the midst of deathlike silence they lay hands on Him and lead him away. — location: 4805 ^ref-1394
care not to know whether it is Thou or only a semblance of Him, — location: 4817 ^ref-36257
does it matter to us after all whether it was a mistake of identity or a wild fantasy? All that matters is that the old man should speak out, that he should speak openly of what he has thought in silence for ninety years.” — location: 4825 ^ref-31297
Thou mayest not add to what has been said of old, — location: 4833 ^ref-1900
Whatsoever Thou revealest anew will encroach on men’s freedom of faith; for it will be manifest as a miracle, and the freedom of their faith was dearer to Thee than anything in those days fifteen hundred years ago. — location: 4834 ^ref-33231
to do so had gathered together all the wise men of the earth- rulers, chief priests, learned men, philosophers, poets- and had set them the task to invent three questions, such as would not only fit the occasion, but express in three words, three human phrases, the whole future history of the world and of humanity- dost Thou believe that all the wisdom of the earth united could have invented anything in depth and force equal to the three questions which were actually put to Thee then by the wise and mighty spirit in the wilderness? — location: 4856 ^ref-62345
we can see that we have here to do not with the fleeting human intelligence, but with the absolute and eternal. — location: 4860 ^ref-48453
what is that freedom worth if obedience is bought with bread? Thou — location: 4869 ^ref-10586
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet, — location: 4880 ^ref-63314
will understand themselves, at last, that freedom and bread enough for all are inconceivable together, for never, never will they be able to share between them! They will be convinced, too, that they can never be free, — location: 4881 ^ref-46814
And if for the sake of the bread of Heaven thousands shall follow Thee, what is to become of the millions and tens of thousands of millions of creatures who will not have the strength to forego the earthly bread for the sake of the heavenly? Or dost Thou care only for the tens of thousands of the great and strong, while the millions, numerous as the sands of the sea, who are weak but love Thee, must exist only for the sake of the great and strong? — location: 4884 ^ref-49755
They will marvel at us and look on us as gods, because we are ready to endure the freedom which they have found so dreadful — location: 4887 ^ref-50300
Choosing “bread,” Thou wouldst have satisfied the universal and everlasting craving of humanity- to find someone to worship. So long as man remains free he strives for nothing so incessantly and so painfully as to find someone to worship. But — location: 4892 ^ref-48207
to find community of worship is the chief misery of every man individually and of all humanity — location: 4895 ^ref-56860
man prefers peace, and even death, to freedom of choice in the knowledge of good and evil? — location: 4907 ^ref-52749
So that, in truth, Thou didst Thyself lay the foundation for the destruction of Thy kingdom, and no one is more to blame for it. — location: 4916 ^ref-43342
those forces are miracle, mystery and authority. — location: 4918 ^ref-64287
Is the nature of men such, that they can reject miracle, and at the great moments of their life, the moments of their deepest, most agonising spiritual difficulties, cling only to the free verdict of the heart? — location: 4925 ^ref-14443
Thou didst not know that when man rejects miracle he rejects God too; for man seeks not so much God as the miraculous. — location: 4928 ^ref-53250
Freedom, free thought, and science will lead them into such straits and will bring them face to face with such marvels and insoluble mysteries, that some of them, the fierce and rebellious, will destroy themselves, others, rebellious but weak, will destroy one another, while the rest, weak and unhappy, will crawl fawning to our feet and whine to us: “Yes, you were right, you alone possess His mystery, and we come back to you, save us from ourselves!” — location: 4954 ^ref-33702
hundred thousand sufferers who have taken upon themselves the curse of the knowledge of good and evil. — location: 4978 ^ref-43802
For if anyone has ever deserved our fires, it is Thou. To-morrow I shall burn Thee. — location: 4990 ^ref-34525
“look around you at the gifts of God, the clear sky, the pure air, the tender grass, the birds; nature is beautiful and sinless, and we, only we, are sinful and foolish, and we don’t understand that life is heaven, for we have only to understand that and it will at once be fulfilled in all its beauty, we shall embrace each other and weep.” — location: 5761 ^ref-23670
“And that we are all responsible to all for all, apart from our own sins, you were quite right in thinking that, and it is wonderful how you could comprehend it in all its significance at once. And in very truth, so soon as men understand that, the Kingdom of Heaven will be for them not a dream, but a living reality.” — location: 5838 ^ref-40723
No sort of scientific teaching, no kind of common interest, will ever teach men to share property and privileges with equal consideration for all. Everyone will think his share too small and they will be always envying, complaining and attacking one another. You ask when it will come to pass; it will come to pass, but first we have to go though the period of isolation.” — location: 5845 ^ref-22256
the isolation that prevails everywhere, above all in our age- it has not fully developed, it has not reached its limit yet. For everyone strives to keep his individuality as apart as possible, wishes to secure the greatest possible fullness of life for himself; but meantime all his efforts result not in attaining fullness of life but self-destruction, for instead of self-realisation he ends by arriving at complete solitude. — location: 5848 ^ref-3124
mankind in our age have split up into units, they all keep apart, each in his own groove; each one holds aloof, hides himself and hides what he has, from the rest, and he ends by being repelled by others and repelling them. — location: 5851 ^ref-3201
have science; but in science there is nothing but what is the object of sense. The spiritual world, the higher part of man’s being is rejected altogether, dismissed with a sort of triumph, even with hatred. The — location: 6053 ^ref-61449
For the world says: “You have desires and so satisfy them, for you have the same rights as the most rich and powerful. Don’t be afraid of satisfying them and even multiply your desires.” That is the modern doctrine of the world. — location: 6055 ^ref-55066