Resurrection Quotes
"All were glad, the plants, the birds, the insects, and the children."
"It was not this spring morning men thought sacred and worthy of consideration, not the beauty of God’s world, given for a joy to all creatures, this beauty which inclines the heart to peace, to harmony, and to love, but only their own devices for enslaving one another."
"Even into the prison yard the breeze had brought the fresh vivifying air from the fields."
"The comparatively fresh air also gladdened her, but it was painful to step on the rough stones with the ill-made prison shoes on her feet, which had become unused to walking."
"Passing by a corn-dealer’s shop, in front of which a few pigeons were strutting about, unmolested by anyone, the prisoner almost touched a grey-blue bird with her foot; it fluttered up and flew close to her ear, fanning her with its wings."
"She smiled, then sighed deeply as she remembered her present position."
"After that everything seemed repugnant to her, her only thought being how to escape from the shame that awaited her."
"The old woman’s eyes vanished from the grating, and Máslova stepped out into the middle of the corridor."
"The whole of life seemed full of gladness."
"He was continually told that these peasants, after they had received the land, got no richer, but, on the contrary, poorer, having opened three public-houses and left off doing any work."
"She had just come in from outside, and entering the corridor, she at once became sleepy."
"We are prepared to sacrifice our lives at the wars, and therefore a gay, reckless life is not only pardonable, but absolutely necessary for us, and so we lead it."
"She's here!" and it was as if the sun had come out from behind the clouds.
"Christ is risen!" and they kissed twice, then paused as if considering whether a third kiss were necessary, and, having decided that it was, kissed a third time and smiled.
"No, no!" she said, but only with her lips; the tremulous confusion of her whole being said something very different.
I am not guilty, not guilty!" she suddenly cried, so that it resounded through the room. "It is a sin! I am not guilty!
I see something has happened," she said. "Tell me, what is the matter with you?
"Not now. Please do not ask me to tell you."
"I have quite given it up," Nekhlúdoff replied drily. The falseness of her flattery seemed as evident to him today as her age, which she was trying to conceal, and he could not put himself into the right state to behave politely.
"Oh, that is a pity! … Why, he has a real talent for art; I have it from Repin’s own lips," she added, turning to Kólosoff.
"Why is it she is not ashamed of lying so?" Nekhlúdoff thought, and frowned.
"Please, Philip, draw these curtains," she said, pointing to the window, when the handsome footman came in answer to the bell.
"Without poetry, mysticism is superstition; without mysticism, poetry is—prose," she continued, with a sorrowful smile, still not losing sight of the footman and the curtains.
"I am not going to have any supper," he said to his manservant Cornéy, who followed him into the dining-room, where the cloth was laid for supper and tea. "You may go."
"Shameful and stupid, horrid and shameful!" Nekhlúdoff kept saying to himself, as he walked home along the familiar streets.
"Lord, help me, teach me, come enter within me and purify me of all this abomination."
"Of course, there is a good deal of truth in Lombroso’s teaching," said Kólosoff.
"Is it the solitary cell you want?" shouted the assistant inspector.
"She did not mean to play anything; the woman is simply lying, for some reason or other," thought Nekhlúdoff, rising and pressing Sophia Vasílievna’s transparent and bony, ringed hand.
"I see the duties of a juryman act depressingly upon you."
"Ah, how horrid!" he said to himself, looking up once more at the half-naked woman, with the splendid marble shoulders and arms, and the triumphant smile on her lips. "Oh, how horrid!" The bared shoulders of the portrait reminded him of another, a young woman, whom he had seen exposed in the same way a few days before.
"No, I must tell her," he thought; "no hiding; everybody must be told."
"Well, are you coming into my room? We will try to cheer you up."
"Remember that what is important to you is important to your friends," she said. "Are you coming tomorrow?"
"What is it? Comme cela m’intrigue," said Katerína Alexéevna. "I must find it out. I suppose it is some affaire d’amour propre; il est très susceptible, notre cher Mítia."
"Only just to get through with this jury business, and arrange with the advocate first."
"The devil take you! What do you want?" was probably what he said to himself," thought Nekhlúdoff, who had been observing all this scene."
"Yes, I will beg her pardon, as children do." … He stopped—"will marry her if necessary." He stopped again, folded his hands in front of his breast as he used to do when a little child, lifted his eyes, and said, addressing someone: "Lord, help me, teach me, come enter within me and purify me of all this abomination."
"It is easier said than done, you know." - On the complexities and challenges of maintaining order in a prison.
"They are still liable to it." - On the harsh reality of corporal punishment still being used in the prison system.
"We are suffering the second month for nothing." - A prisoner's lament on the unjust length of their incarceration.
"God is my witness it is true." - A prisoner's plea for justice and understanding of his wrongful imprisonment.
"I am perishing without any reason." - The despair of an innocent man facing the injustices of the prison system.
"She lived in a house with some conspirators." - On the dangerous and secretive life of a political prisoner.
"I am now asking you for the last time." - The inspector's struggle to enforce rules during visiting hours in prison.
"The earth cannot be anyone's property; it cannot be bought or sold any more than water, air, or sunshine. All have an equal right to the advantages it gives to men."
"To understand the whole of the Master's will is not in my power. But to do His will, that is written down in my conscience, is in my power; that I know for certain. And when I am fulfilling it I have sureness and peace."
"I think as you do, and I count it a sin to possess land, so I wish to give it away."
"The land is common to all. All have the same right to it, but there is good land and bad land, and everyone would like to take the good land."
"It means that you have sufficient land."
"If one is to divide, all must share alike."
"I shall remain here another day, and if you change your minds, send to let me know."
"The payment should be not too high and not too low. If it is too high it will not get paid, and there will be a loss; and if it is too low it will be bought and sold."
"Yes, to feel one's self not the master but a servant."
"Our own land is five versts away, and as to renting any it's impossible; the price is raised so high that it won't pay."
"They will know each other by the light emanating from their astral bodies." - Joan of Arc through a séance.
"God grant every Russian may eat as well as they do." - General, speaking about the prisoners' meals.
"We do not keep them; we do not value their visits much." - General, on releasing prisoners.
"I shall certainly report it myself." - Baron Vorobióff, on Theodosia's case.
"There are no innocent ones among them. All these people are most immoral." - General, on the prisoners.
"Don’t you believe it, it’s not study he wants; it is just only restlessness." - General, on a prisoner's request for books.
"I am old, yet I am serving still, as well as my strength allows." - General, on his duty.
"We have often heard the like of you; it is all in vain." - Senators' unspoken response to the advocate's plea.
"The house is in flames; there is no escape." - Kiesewetter, preaching.
"Have you been in Petersburg long?" - General's question to Nekhlúdoff.
"Skovoródnikoff was a materialist, a Darwinian, and counted every manifestation of abstract morality, or, worse still, religion, not only as a despicable folly, but as a personal affront to himself."
"The case was spoiled in the Criminal Court," said the advocate.
"What woman?" "The one whose case has just been decided."
"It could not be helped, dear Prince. The reasons for an appeal were not sufficient," he said, shrugging his narrow shoulders and closing his eyes.
"I did not know you were in Petersburg." "And I did not know you were Public Prosecutor-in-Chief."
"I am here because I hoped to find justice and save a woman innocently condemned."
"Oh! Máslova’s case," said Selenín, suddenly remembering it. "The appeal had no grounds whatever."
"It’s the woman who is innocent, and is being punished."
"The Senate has no right to say so. If the Senate took upon itself to repeal the decision of the law courts according to its own views as to the justice of the decisions in themselves, the verdict of the jury would lose all its meaning."
"All I know is that this woman is quite innocent, and that the last hope of saving her from an unmerited punishment is gone. The grossest injustice has been confirmed by the highest court."
"I mean that only two reasonable kinds of punishment exist."
"What sense is there in locking up in a prison a man perverted by want of occupation and bad example?"
"Improved prisons would cost more than all that is being now spent on the people’s education."
"The shortcomings of the penitentiary system in nowise invalidate the law itself."
"What of that? Shall we therefore go and kill, or, as a certain statesman proposed, go putting out people’s eyes?"
"The prisons cannot ensure our safety, because these people do not stay there forever, but are set free again."
"I have seen how one public prosecutor did his very best to get an unfortunate boy condemned, who could have evoked nothing but sympathy in an unperverted mind."
"If only we could manage to see the beam in our own eye in time, how kind we should be."
"The gang of prisoners, among whom was Máslova, was to leave Moscow by rail at 3 p.m."
"They all looked so much alike, and they were all placed in such unusual, peculiar circumstances, that they seemed to be not men but some sort of strange and terrible creatures."
"All the way from Tomsk they were not put on."
"I’ll teach you the law. Who spoke. You? You?"
"It seems there are all sorts of gentlefolk, too."
"If a bacteria watched and examined a human nail it would pronounce it inorganic matter."
"I’m a sinner, when tired I even drink a little vodka sometimes."
"I must thank God for it all the days of my life."
"The motives she understood easily and without effort that guided these people, and, being of the people, fully sympathised with them."
"This especially made her value and admire them."
"She was charmed with all the new companions, but particularly with Mary Pávlovna."
"She was struck by the fact that this beautiful girl... lived like the simplest working girl, and dressed not only simply, but poorly, paying no heed to her appearance."
"Máslova could see that Mary Pávlovna knew, and was even pleased to know, that she was handsome, and yet the effect her appearance had on men was not at all pleasing to her."
"The interest of her whole life lay in the search for opportunities of serving others."
"The tenderness and kindness of so uncommon a being touched Máslova so much that she gave her whole heart."
"These women were also united by the repulsion they both felt to sexual love."
"Everybody lives and acts partly according to his own, partly according to other people’s, ideas."