Important Quotations Explained
1. “Above
all, do not lie to yourself. A man who lies to himself and listens
to his own lie comes to a point where he does not discern any truth
either in himself or anywhere around him, and thus falls into disrespect
towards himself and others. Not respecting anyone, he ceases to
love, and having no love, he gives himself up to the passions and
coarse pleasures, in order to occupy and amuse himself, and in his vices
reaches complete bestiality, and it all comes from lying continually
to others and to himself.”
2. “Listen:
if everyone must suffer, in order to buy eternal harmony with their
suffering, pray tell me what have children got to do with it? It's
quite incomprehensible why they should have to suffer, and why they
should buy harmony with their suffering.”
3. “Decide
yourself who was right: you or the one who questioned you then?
Recall the first question; its meaning, though not literally, was
this: âYou want to go into the world, and you are going empty-handed,
with some promise of freedom, which they in their simplicity and
innate lawlessness cannot even comprehend, which they dread and fear—for
nothing has ever been more insufferable for man and for human society
than freedom! But do you see these stones in this bare, scorching
desert? Turn them into bread and mankind will run after you like
sheep, grateful and obedient, though eternally trembling lest you
withdraw your hand and your loaves cease for them.'”
4. “Very
different is the monastic way. Obedience, fasting, and prayer are
laughed at, yet they alone constitute the way to real and true freedom:
I cut away my superfluous and unnecessary needs, through obedience
I humble and chasten my vain and proud will, and thereby, with God's
help, attain freedom of spirit, and with that, spiritual rejoicing!”
5. “But
hesitation, anxiety, the struggle between belief and disbelief—all
that is sometimes such a torment for a conscientious man like yourself,
that it's better to hang oneself. . . . I'm leading you alternately
between belief and disbelief, and I have my own purpose in doing
so. A new method, sir: when you've completely lost faith in me,
then you'll immediately start convincing me to my face that I am not
a dream but a reality—I know you know; and then my goal will be
achieved. And it is a noble goal. I will sow a just a tiny seed
of faith in you, and from it an oak will grow—and such an oak that
you, sitting in that oak, will want to join âthe desert fathers
and the blameless women'; because secretly you want that ver-ry,
ver-ry much. . . .”
