Akif > Akif's Quotes

“We do not learn, and that what we call learning is only a process of recollection.”
― Plato, Meno

“I felt once more how simple and frugal a thing is happiness: a glass of wine, a roast chestnut, a wretched little brazier, the sound of the sea. Nothing else.”
― Nikos Kazantzakis, Zorba the Greek

“This is true happiness: to have no ambition and to work like a horse as if you had every ambition. To live far from men, not to need them and yet to love them. To have the stars above, the land to your left and the sea to your right and to realize of a sudden that in your heart, life has accomplished its final miracle: it has become a fairy tale.”
― Nikos Kazantzakis, Zorba the Greek

“If a woman sleeps alone it puts a shame on all men. God has a very big heart, but there is one sin He will not forgive. If a woman calls a man to her bed and he will not go.”
― Nikos Kazantzakis, Zorba the Greek

“The whole question here is: am I a monster, or a victim myself?”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Crime and Punishment

“If you want to overcome the whole world, overcome yourself.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Demons

“God is necessary, and therefore must exist... But I know that he does not and cannot exist... Don't you understand that a man with these two thoughts cannot go on living?”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Demons

“My friend, the truth is always implausible, did you know that? To make the truth more plausible, it's absolutely necessary to mix a bit of falsehood with it. People have always done so.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Demons

“In sinning, each man sins against all, and each man is at least partly guilty for another's sin. There is no isolated sin.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Demons

“God is the pain of the fear of death”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, Demons

“I do not wish you much happiness--it would bore you; I do not wish you trouble either; but, following the people's philosophy, I will simply repeat: 'Live more' and try somehow not to be too bored; this useless wish I am adding on my own.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Demons

“One must be a great man indeed to be able to hold out even against common sense."
"Or else a fool.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Demons

“If there is God, then the will is all his, and I cannot get out of his will. If not, the will is all mine, and it is my duty to proclaim self-will."
"Self-will? And why is it your duty?"
"Because the will has all become mine. Can it be that no one on the whole planet, having ended God and believed in self-will, dares to proclaim self-will to the fullest point? It's as if a poor man received an inheritance, got scared, and doesn't dare go near the bag, thinking he's too weak to own it. I want to proclaim self-will. I may be the only one, but I'll do it.
"Do it, then."
"It is my duty to shoot myself because the fullest point of my self-will is--for me to kill myself...to kill someone else would be the lowest point of my self-will, and there's the whole of you in that. I am not you: I want the highest point, and will kill myself...It is my duty to proclaim unbelief," Kirillow was pacing the room. "For me no idea is higher than that there is no God. The history of mankind is on my side. Man has done nothing but invent God, so as to live without killing himself; in that lies the whole of world history up to now. I alone for the first time in world history did not want to invent God. Let them know once and for all.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Demons

“Full freedom will come only when it makes no difference whether to live or not to live. That’s the goal for everyone.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Demons

“Each man cannot judge except by himself," he said, blushing. "There will be entire freedom when it makes no difference whether one lives or does not live. That is the goal to everything."
"The goal? But then perhaps no one will even want to live?"
"No one," he said resolutely.
"Man is afraid of death because he loves life, that's how I understand it," I observed, "and that is what nature tells us."
"That is base, that is the whole deceit!" his eyes began to flash. "Life is pain, life is fear, and man is unhappy. Now all is pain and fear. Now man loves life because he loves pain and fear. That's how they've made it. Life now is given in exchange for pain and fear, and that is the whole deceit. Man now is not yet the right man. There will be a new man, happy and proud. He for whom it will make no difference whether he lives or does not live, he will be the new man. He who overcomes pain and fear will himself be God. And this God will not be.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Demons