If Darwin had seen in life what Dostoevsky saw, he would not have talked of the law of the preservation of species, but of its destruction.
Lev ShestovMots clés destruction darwin dostoevsky
Suffering "buys" something, and this something possesses a certain value for all of us, for common consciousness; by suffering we buy the right to judge.
Lev ShestovThe story of a regeneration of convictions - can any story in the entire field of literature be more filled with thrilling and all-absorbing interest?
Lev ShestovDostoevsky does not believe his own words, and he is trying to replace a lack of faith with "feeling" and eloquence.
Lev ShestovMots clés dostoevsky
We very often express in a categorical form a judgment of which we do not feel assured, we even lay stress on its absolute validity. We want to see what opposition it will arouse, and this can be achieved only by stating our assumption not as a tentative suggestion, which no one will consider, but as an irrefutable, all-important truth. The greater the value of the assumption has for us, the more carefully do we conceal any suggestion of its improbability.
Lev ShestovPractical advice.—People who read much must always keep it in mind that life is one thing, literature another. Not that authors invariably lie. I declare that there are writers who rarely and most reluctantly lie. But one must know how to read, and that isn't easy. Out of a hundred bookreaders ninety-nine have no idea what they are reading about. It is a common belief, for example, that any writer who sings of suffering must be ready at all times to open his arms to the weary and heavy-laden. This is what his readers feel when they read his books. Then when they approach him with their woes, and find that he runs away without looking back at them, they are filled with indignation and talk of the discrepancy between word and deed. Whereas the fact is, the singer has more than enough woes of his own, and he sings them because he can't get rid of them. L’uccello canta nella gabbia, non di gioia ma di rabbia, says the Italian proverb: "The bird sings in the cage, not from joy but from rage." It is impossible to love sufferers, particularly hopeless sufferers, and whoever says otherwise is a deliberate liar. "Come unto Me all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." But you remember what the Jews said about Him: "He speaks as one having authority!" And if Jesus had been unable, or had not possessed the right, to answer this skeptical taunt, He would have had to renounce His words. We common mortals have neither divine powers nor divine rights, we can only love our neighbours whilst they still have hope, and any pretence of going beyond this is empty swagger. Ask him who sings of suffering for nothing but his songs. Rather think of alleviating his burden than of requiring alleviation from him. Surely not—for ever should we ask any poet to sob and look upon tears. I will end with another Italian saying: Non è un si triste cane che non meni la coda... "No dog so wretched that doesn't wag his tail sometimes.
Lev ShestovWhether I am believed or not, I will repeat that Vladimir Soloviov, who held that Dostoevsky was a prophet, is wrong, and that N. K. Mikhailovsky, who calls him a cruel talent and a grubber after buried treasure, is right. Dostoevsky grubs after buried treasure no doubt about that. And, therefore, it would be more becoming in the younger generation that still marches under the flag of pious idealism if, instead of choosing him as a spiritual leader, they avoided the old sorcerer, in whom only those gifted with great shortsightedness or lack of experience in life could fail to see the dangerous man.
Lev ShestovA thread from everyone, and the naked will have a shirt." There is no beggar but has his thread of cotton, and he will not grudge it to a naked man - no, nor even to a fully dressed one; but will bestow it on the first comer. The poor, who want to forget their poverty, are very ready with their threads. Moreover, they prefer to give them to the rich, rather than to a fellow-tramp. To load the rich with benefits, must not one be very rich indeed? That is why fame is so easily got.
Lev ShestovWhatever our definition of truth may be, we can never renounce Descartes' clare et distincte (clarity and distinctness).
Lev ShestovMots clés truth-decartes
Life would again have to make superhuman efforts, "as in a battle," to break open for himself a path through the truths created by the sciences which "dream of being but cannot see it in waking reality.
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