“God will punish all atheists. They will burn in everlasting fire.” [A hermit] Obviously upset, the Staretz said: “Tell me, supposing you went to paradise and looked down and saw somebody burning in hell-fire—would you…
Above all, avoid lies, all lies, especially the lie to yourself. Keep watch on your own lie and examine it every hour, every minute. And avoid contempt, both of others and of yourself: what seems…
for Natalie Long Faith comes not from theory but from experience, from the bottom up, by living the right sort of life from moment to moment. For Zossima, that means attending to the prosaic. One…
And therefore I think the solution I have found for myself will be valid for all sincere men who set themselves the same question. First of all, to the question: What must we do? I…
It was never my goal to put together a collection of horror stories, to overwhelm the reader. I was collecting the human. Dostoevsky asked the question: “How much of the human is there in a…
“Just recently I was feeling unwell and read House of the Dead. I had forgotten a good bit, read it over again and I do not know a better book in all our new literature,…
Active love is always directed at somebody or something in particular. Abstract love of humanity is professed by Ivan Karamazov’s Grand Inquisitor, by Rakitin, and eventually by Ivan Karamazov’s devil. When it comes to meeting…
I onward go, I stop,With hinged knees and steady hand, to dress wounds;I am firm with each—the pangs are sharp, yet unavoidable;One turns to me his appealing eyes—(poor boy! I never knew you,Yet I think…
I am spending my mornings reading the riveting new book by Gary Saul Morson, Wonder Confronts Certainty: Russian Writers on the Timeless Questions and Why Their Answers Matter. A short while back, I posted a…
One makes a better world by what Dostoevsky liked to call “microscopic actions.” When you walk down the street, Zossima tells the other monks, don’t scowl. A kindly look can shift a person’s mood and…