Quotes from Crime and Punishment

Quotations follow the Constance Garnett translation (Modern Library, 1914) — our recommended edition.

1. 2

   Did I murder the old woman? I murdered myself, not her! I crushed myself once for all, for ever.... But it was the devil that killed that old woman, not I.

2. 3

   Yes, that's what it was! I wanted to become a Napoleon, that is why I killed her.... Do you understand now?

3. 4

   We always imagine eternity as something beyond our conception, something vast, vast! But why must it be vast? Instead of all that, what if it's one little room, like a bath house in the country, black and grimy and spiders in every corner, and that's all eternity is?

4. 5

   Go at once, this very minute, stand at the cross-roads, bow down, first kiss the earth which you have defiled and then bow down to all the world and say to all men aloud, 'I am a murderer!' Then God will send you life again.

5. 6

   Pain and suffering are always inevitable for a large intelligence and a deep heart. The really great men must, I think, have great sadness on earth.

6. 7

   Pain and suffering are always inevitable for a large intelligence and a deep heart.

7. 8

   I've only killed a louse, Sonia, a useless, loathsome, harmful creature.

8. 9

   Man grows used to everything, the scoundrel!

9. 10

   To go wrong in one's own way is better than to go right in someone else's. In the first case you are a man, in the second you're no better than a bird.

10. 11

    I didn't kill a human being, but a principle!

11. 12

    But if such a one is forced for the sake of his idea to step over a corpse or wade through blood, he can, I maintain, find within himself, in his conscience, a sanction for wading through blood.

12. 13

    The darker the night, the brighter the stars. The deeper the grief, the closer is God!

13. 14

    Through error you come to the truth! I am a man because I err! You never reach any truth without making fourteen mistakes and very likely a hundred and fourteen.

14. 15

    I ought to be crucified, crucified on a cross, not pitied! Crucify me, oh judge, crucify me but pity me!

15. 16

    Do you understand, sir, do you understand what it means when you have absolutely nowhere to turn?

16. 17

    It was I killed the old pawnbroker woman and her sister Lizaveta with an axe and robbed them.

17. 18

    I did not bow down to you, I bowed down to all the suffering of humanity.

18. 19

    Suffer and expiate your sin by it, that's what you must do.

19. 20

    Taking a new step, uttering a new word is what they fear most....

20. 21

    Be the sun and all will see you. The sun has before all to be the sun.

21. 22

    They were renewed by love; the heart of each held infinite sources of life for the heart of the other.