“ Beauty is a terrible and awful thing! It is terrible because it has not been fathomed and never can be fathomed, for God sets us nothing but riddles. ”
Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov (1880). copy citation
| Author | Fyodor Dostoyevsky |
|---|---|
| Source | The Brothers Karamazov |
| Topic | beauty God |
| Date | 1880 |
| Language | English |
| Reference | |
| Note | Translated by Constance Garnett |
| Weblink | http://www.gutenberg.org/files/28054/28054-h/28054-h.html https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Brothers_Karamazov |
Context
“I am that insect, brother, and it is said of me specially. All we Karamazovs are such insects, and, angel as you are, that insect lives in you, too, and will stir up a tempest in your blood. Tempests, because sensual lust is a tempest—worse than a tempest! Beauty is a terrible and awful thing! It is terrible because it has not been fathomed and never can be fathomed, for God sets us nothing but riddles. Here the boundaries meet and all contradictions exist side by side. I am not a cultivated man, brother, but I've thought a lot about this. It's terrible what mysteries there are! Too many riddles weigh men down on earth.”
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