We always imagine eternity as something beyond our conception, something vast, vast! But why must it be vast? Instead of all that, what if it’s one little room, like a bath house in the country, black and grimy and spiders in every corner, and that’s all eternity is? I sometimes fancy it like that. FyodorContinue reading “RKS RUSSIAN LITERATURE: A Misconception About Eternity (Fyodor Dostoevsky)”
Tag Archives: RKS Russian Literature
RKS RUSSIAN LITERATURE: Illness and Ghosts (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
Ghosts are, as it were, shreds and fragments of other worlds, the beginning of them. A man in health has, of course, no reason to see them, because he is above all a man of this earth and is bound for the sake of completeness and order to live only in this life. But asContinue reading “RKS RUSSIAN LITERATURE: Illness and Ghosts (Fyodor Dostoevsky)”
RKS RUSSIAN LITERATURE: All Men are Mad (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
‘There is some truth to your observation’ the latter replied. ‘In the sense we are certainly all not infrequently like madmen, but with the slight difference that the deranged are somewhat madder, for we must draw a line. A normal man, it is true, hardly exists. Among dozens-perhaps hundreds of thousands-hardly one is to beContinue reading “RKS RUSSIAN LITERATURE: All Men are Mad (Fyodor Dostoevsky)”
RKS RUSSIAN LITERATURE: The Key to Youth for Women (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
“Although Pulcheria Alexandrova was forty-three, her face still retained traces of her former beauty; she looked much younger than her age, indeed, which is almost always the case with women who retain sensitivity of spirit, sensitiveness and pure sincereness of heart to old age. We add in parenthesis that to preserve all this is theContinue reading “RKS RUSSIAN LITERATURE: The Key to Youth for Women (Fyodor Dostoevsky)”
RKS RUSSIAN LITERATURE: Fear and Loathing Overcomes the Double Murderer (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
“Fear gained more and more mastery over him, especially after this second, quite unexpected murder. He longed to run away from the place as fast as possible. And if at that moment if he had been capable of seeing and reasoning more correctly, if he had been able to realise all the difficulties of hisContinue reading “RKS RUSSIAN LITERATURE: Fear and Loathing Overcomes the Double Murderer (Fyodor Dostoevsky)”
RKS RUSSIAN LITERATURE: A Criminal’s Failure of Will and Reasoning (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
“Almost every criminal is subject to a failure of will and reasoning power by a childish and phenomenal heedlessness at the very instant when prudence and caution are most essential. It was his conviction that this eclipse of reason and failure of willpower attacked a man like a disease, developed gradually and reached its highestContinue reading “RKS RUSSIAN LITERATURE: A Criminal’s Failure of Will and Reasoning (Fyodor Dostoevsky)”
RKS RUSSIAN LITERATURE: Too Many Pots of Vodka and High-Flown Speeches (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
“Evidently Marmeladov was a familiar figure here and he had most likely acquired his weakness for high-flown speeches from the habit of frequently entering into conversation with strangers of all sorts in the tavern. This habit develops into a necessity in some drunkards, and especially in those who are looked after sharply and kept inContinue reading “RKS RUSSIAN LITERATURE: Too Many Pots of Vodka and High-Flown Speeches (Fyodor Dostoevsky)”
RKS RUSSIAN LITERATURE: Should He Murder the Old Hag? (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
‘I want to attempt a thing like that and I am frightened by these trifles’, he thought with an odd smile. ’Hm…yes. all is in a man’s hands and he lets it all slip from cowardice, that’s an axiom. It would be interesting to know what it is men are most afraid of. Taking aContinue reading “RKS RUSSIAN LITERATURE: Should He Murder the Old Hag? (Fyodor Dostoevsky)”
RKS Russian Literature: A Dreadful Absence of Both Good and Evil (Nikolay Gogol)
“No one had seen him, even once, being any different from what he always was, whether on the street or at home. Had he but once showed any concern for anything, had he got roaring drink and burst out laughing in his drunken state, had he even abandoned himself to wild grotesque revelry of theContinue reading “RKS Russian Literature: A Dreadful Absence of Both Good and Evil (Nikolay Gogol)”
RKS Russian Literature: A Russian Philanthropic Swindle (Nikolay Gogol)
“For instance, having set up some philanthropic society for the poor and having contributed considerable sums to it, we lose no time in commemorating such a praiseworthy event by throwing a dinner for all the leading dignitaries of the town, thereby expending, of course, half the sums that have been contributed. With what remains, aContinue reading “RKS Russian Literature: A Russian Philanthropic Swindle (Nikolay Gogol)”
