“He went up to his room like a man who has been condemned to death. His mind was completely empty, and he was quite incapable of filling it with anything; 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.”

“Sonra anladım ki, Sonya, herkesin akıllı olmasını beklemeye kalkarsam bu çok uzun sürecek… Sonra gene anladım ki, asla gerçekleşemeyecek bir şeydir bu, insanlar asla değişemeyeceklerdir, kimse de değiştiremeyecektir onları, bunun için çaba harcamaya değmez… Evet, böyle işte! Bir doğa yasasıdır bu… Yasa, Sonya, doğa yasası! Öyle işte!.. Şimdi şunu biliyorum Sonya, akılca da ruhça da kim sağlamsa, güçlüyse insanlara o hükmedecektir. Kim daha yürekliyse o haklıdır… Kim daha çok şeyi umursamıyorsa yasa koyucu o oluyor, gözü en pek olan herkesten haklı çıkıyor… Şimdiye dek böyle gelmiş, böyle gidecek! Ne var ki körler göremezler bunu!”

“So a man will sometimes go through half an hour of mortal terror with a brigand, yet when the knife is at his throat at last, he feels no fear.”

“I like them to talk nonsense. That's man's one privilege over all creation. Through error you come to the truth. I am a man because I err! You can never reach any truth without making fourteen mistakes and very likely a hundred and fourteen.”

“Low ceilings and tiny rooms cramp the soul and the mind.”

“I once saw a convict who had been twenty years in prison and was being released take leave of his fellow prisoners. There were men who remembered his first coming into prison, when he was young, careless, heedless of his crime and his punishment. He went out a grey-headed, elderly man, with a sad sullen face. He walked in silence through our six barrack-rooms. As he entered each room he prayed to the ikons, and then bowing low to his fellow prisoners he asked them not to remember evil against him.”

“Ivan felt an intense hatred for him before he had thought about him at all. Suddenly he realised his presence and felt an irresistible impulse to knock him down.”