The Idiot
Fyodor Dostoyevsky, William Mills Todd III (Introduction), David McDuff (Translator)
and his respect for his spouse and occasional fear of her were so great that it could even be said that he loved her. (Location 904)
He was one of those men, or even, one might say, men of action of our modern age, decent, modest, who sincerely and consciously desire the useful, are always working and are distinguished by the rare and happy quality of always finding work to do. Not parading himself, avoiding the bitterness and empty talk of the political parties, not considering himself among the leaders, the prince was none the less very thoroughly acquainted with much that had taken place in recent times. He had earlier been in government service, then began to take part in the running of the zemstva.2 In addition, he was a useful corresponding member of several Russian learned societies. Together with an engineer of his acquaintance he had made possible, by the information they collected and the surveys they had made, an improved route for one of the most important railways then being planned. He was about thirty-five years of age. He was a man of the ‘very highest society’ and, moreover, with a ‘good, serious, indisputable’ fortune, as the general, who in connection with a rather serious matter had had occasion to meet him and make his acquaintance at the house of the count, his superior, put it. The prince, out of a certain special curiosity, never avoided the acquaintance of Russian ‘men of business’. (Location 4350)
you’d have loved your money so much that you’d have piled up not two but ten millions, and died of starvation on your money-sacks, because for you everything is passion, you turn everything into a passion.” (Location 4956)
the essence of religious feeling has nothing to do with any reasoning, or misdemeanours, or crimes, or atheism; it’s something different, and it will always be different; it’s not that, it’s something the atheists will always avoid talking about, as they’ll always be talking about something else. (Location 5099)
Compassion was the principal and, perhaps, the only law of existence for the whole of mankind. (Location 5286)