There is only one salvation for you: take yourself up, and make yourself responsible for all the sins of men. For indeed it is so, my friend, and the moment you make yourself sincerely responsible for everything and everyone, you will see at once that it is really so, that it is you who are guilty on behalf of all and for all. Whereas by shifting your own laziness and powerlessness onto others, you will end by sharing in Satan’s pride and murmuring against God.

Unquote. The beauty of that novel is the way it’s a philosophical work about responsibility that is vaguely disguised as a mystery. I googled this quote as a way to sum that up. But the best part of the book is sort of unquotable. It’s when Ivan meets the devil. That is the perfect devil. The way his suit doesn’t fit. The way he spends all his energy trying to convince Ivan that he’s only a figment of Ivan’s imagination. Stunning. I have a complicated relationship with Dostoevsky. I kind of hate that every character in every novel is basically too crazy to just sit down and drink a glass of water without going crazy and ranting about God and morality, but, dude, that novel, that novel is indisputable. It’s amazing.