Fyodor Dostoevsky — Quote from The Brothers Karamazov

“If God does not exist, everything is permitted.”

The Brothers Karamazov (1880)

Concepts: absurd, freedom, meaning

Resonant Quotes

“God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort o...” — Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science Dostoevsky posed the question that Nietzsche answered — if God is dead, what becomes of morality? One asks in terror,...
“Every existing thing is born without reason, prolongs itself out of weakness ...” — Jean-Paul Sartre, Nausea Both quotes confront the philosophical crisis of meaninglessness—Sartre describing absurd contingency, Dostoevsky war...
“Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom.” — Søren Kierkegaard, The Concept of Anxiety Kierkegaard's anxiety perfectly captures the psychological experience of Dostoevsky's theological insight—both identi...
“What, if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your lonelies...” — Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science Nietzsche's eternal recurrence provides the existential weight that could replace God's moral authority — if you must...
“The absurd does not liberate; it binds. It does not authorize all actions. Ev...” — Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus Camus directly refutes Dostoevsky's formula by arguing that the absence of transcendent meaning creates ethical const...
“There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide. Ju...” — Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus Dostoevsky's observation about the moral consequences of God's absence creates the nihilistic condition that makes Ca...
“There are no facts, only interpretations.” — Friedrich Nietzsche, Notebooks Nietzsche's interpretive relativism provides the metaphysical groundwork for Dostoevsky's moral anxiety about the col...
“Existence precedes essence. Man first of all exists, encounters himself, surg...” — Jean-Paul Sartre, Existentialism Is a Humanism Dostoevsky's theological void anticipates Sartre's radical freedom, where the absence of predetermined essence places...