Love Is Labor

I am sorry that I cannot say anything more comforting, for active love is a harsh and fearful thing compared with love in dreams. Love in dreams thirsts for immediate action, quickly performed, and with…

Stay with Christ

Fyodor Dostoevsky’s famous dictum that he would stay with Christ even if he were proven scientifically wrong suggests no more and no less than a belief in the primacy of moral values over theoretical knowledge….

Read “The Demons”!

What would Dostoevsky say about our “multicultural” universities, our dismal sexual “liberations,” our radical feminists forcing their “all-inclusive” versions of the Bible down the throat of meekly submissive Christian churches? We do not have to…

Today’s One-Liner (#148)

In Poor Folk we have the first timid and hesitant expression of the great theme of theodicy, the questioning of the wisdom of the world created by God—thus a questioning of God himself—that will ultimately…

A Simple, Extraordinary Gift/1

“And I am with you, too, I won’t leave you now, I will go with you for the rest of my life,” the dear, deeply felt words of Grushenka came from somewhere near him. And…

Today’s One-Liner (#124)

It was not in vain that the ancient Fathers used to say: sit in your cell and it will teach you everything. –John B. Dunlap, Staretz Amvrosy, Model for Dostoevsky’s Staretz Zossima, 150

Today’s One-Liner (#103)

I accept the torment of accusation and of my disgrace before all, I want to suffer and be purified by suffering!  –Dmitri Karamazov, in Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

Today’s One-Liner (#96)

I boasted to Rakitin that I gave an onion, but I’ll say it differently to you: in my whole life I’ve given just one little onion, that’s how much good I’ve done. –Grushenka to Alyosha,…