THE COMPLETE NOVELLAS & SHORT STORIES OF FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

My heart was fluttering like a captured bird.

“We are only here for the moment, gentlemen, and in another two hours we shall be going off to the summer villa.”

The man who rejoices finds joy in its strains, while he who grieves finds sorrow in it;

The chief thing is to love others like yourself, that’s the great thing, and that’s everything; nothing else is wanted — you will find out at once how to arrange it all.

For I have seen the truth; I have seen and I know that people can be beautiful and happy without losing the power of living on earth.

I go to spread the tidings, I want to spread the tidings — of what? Of the truth, for I have seen it, have seen it with my own eyes, have seen it in all its glory.

But when they looked at me with their sweet eyes full of love, when I felt that in their presence my heart, too, became as innocent and just as theirs, the feeling of the fullness of life took my breath away, and I worshipped them in silence.

and in my love for them there was a yearning grief: why could I not love them without hating them?

It was like being in love with each other, but an all-embracing, universal feeling.

I long, I thirst, this very instant, to kiss with tears the earth that I have left