I can’t expect to understand about God. I acknowledge humbly that I have no faculty for settling such questions, I have a Euclidian earthly mind, and how could I solve problems that are not of this world? And I advise you never to think about it either, my dear Alyosha, especially about God, whether He exists or not. All such questions are utterly inappropriate for a mind created with an idea of only three dimensions.
Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov
The science of this world, which has become a great power, has, especially in the last century, analyzed everything divine handed down to us in the holy books. After this cruel analysis the learned of this world have nothing left of all that was sacred of old. But they have only analyzed the parts and overlooked the whole, and indeed their blindness is marvelous. Yet the whole still stands steadfast before their eyes.
Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov
For know, dear ones, that every one of us is undoubtedly responsible for all men and everything on earth, not merely through the general sinfulness of creation, but each one personally for all mankind and every individual man. This knowledge is the crown of life....
Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov
"Strive to love your neighbor actively and indefatigably. In as far as you advance in love you will grow surer of the reality of God and of the immortality of your soul.... yet I am incapable of living in the same room with any one for two days together, as I know by experience. As soon as any one is near me, his personality disturbs my self‐complacency and restricts my freedom. In twenty‐four hours I begin to hate the best of men"
Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov
I consider that a man’s brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose. A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that he comes across, so that the knowledge which might be useful to him gets crowded out, or at best is jumbled up with a lot of other things so that he has a difficulty in laying his hands upon it. Now the skillful workman is very careful indeed as to what he takes into his brain-attic. He will have nothing but the tools which may help him in doing his work, but of these he has a large assortment, and all in the most perfect order. It is a mistake to think that that little room has elastic walls and can distend to any extent. Depend upon it there comes a time when for every addition of knowledge you forget something that you knew before. It is of the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out the useful ones.
It is a capital mistake to theorize before you have all the evidence. It biases the judgment.
Sherlock Holmes, by Arthur Conan Doyle in A Study in Scarlet
There is no doubt that being human is incredibly difficult and cannot be mastered in one lifetime.
Dead men don’t find things out.
No bird soars too high if he soars with his own wings.
The fox condemns the trap, not himself.
What is now proved was once only imagined.
Everything possible to be believed is an image of truth.
Expect poison from the standing water.
You never know what is enough unless you know what is more than enough.
To create a little flower is the labor of ages.
If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, infinite.
William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell
To know good by knowing good is the privilege of the unfallen.
Catherine Nicholson, on Milton in the NYR.
We must not expect to find reason anywhere in Nature, but only the evidence of will!
Pliny the Elder, Natural History
What’s wisdom but knowing what is right, and what is the right thing to do?
Iain M. Banks, Use of Weapons
