Find the perfect quote to float your boat. Shmoop breaks down key quotations from The Idiot.
Philosophical Viewpoints: The Non-Divine Christ Quotes
The prince's gaze was so gentle at this moment, and his smile was so entirely free from even a shade of concealed hostility, that the general suddenly stopped, and somehow suddenly looked at his vi...
Compassion and forgiveness Quotes
When Totsky had approached the general with his request for friendly counsel as to a marriage with one of his daughters, he had made a full and candid confession. He had said that he intended to st...
Love Quotes
But the general never murmured later against his early marriage, never regarded it as the infatuation of an improvident youth, and respected his wife so much, and sometimes feared her so much, that...
Suffering Quotes
"Such suffering! […] when that man stepped upon the scaffold he cried […]. Imagine what must have been going on in that man's mind at such a moment; what dreadful convulsions his whole spirit m...
Sacrifice Quotes
Perhaps the sisterly love and friendship of the three girls had more or less exaggerated Aglaya's chances of happiness. In their opinion, the latter's destiny was not merely to be very happy; she w...
Hypocrisy Quotes
Yet [Ganya's] smile, in spite of its sweetness, was somewhat too subtle; it showed his somewhat too pearly and even teeth; his gaze, for all its cheerfulness and ostensible simple-heartedness, was...
Good vs. Evil Quotes
[The prince] began to examine the portrait in his hand. He longed to solve the mystery of something in the face Nastasya Philipovna, something which had struck him as he looked at the portrait for...
Society and Class Quotes
These Mr. Know-it-alls are met with pretty frequently in a certain class. They know everything, all the restless inquisitiveness of their minds and all their abilities are turned irresistibly in on...
Innocence Quotes
The conversation proceeded. The readiness of the fair-haired young man in the cloak to answer all his opposite neighbor's questions was surprising. He seemed to have no suspicion of any impertinenc...
Power Quotes
General Epanchin lived in his own house near the Litaynaya. Besides this large residence—five-sixths of which was let in flats and lodgings—the general was owner of another enormous house in th...