"They say: 'He's been dreaming, he's rambling, hallucinations.' Well, what of it? And they're so proud of themselves! Dream? What's a dream? Isn't this life of ours a dream? I'll go further: suppose it never, ever comes true, and there is no paradise (now that I do understand!), well, I'll still go on preaching. And yet how simple a matter it is: in one day, in one hour it could all be brought about, at once! The chief thing is to love others as oneself, that's the main thing, and that's it - absolutely nothing more is necessary: you would immediately discover how to bring it about. And yet it's just the old truth after all - an old truth a billion years ago times repeated and preached, though it fell on stony ground, didn't it? 'The cognition of life is superior to life, the knowledge of the laws of happiness - superior to happiness! - that's what has to be fought against! And I shall. If only everyone desired it, it could all be brought about at once." - Fyodor Dosteovsky, Dream of A Ridiculous Man, Page 127 and 128
Saturday, June 3, 2023
When you love someone who loves and marries another
"As if I would nurse my resentment, Nastenka! As if I would drive a dark cloud across your bright, serene happiness, as if I would inflict misery on your heart with my bitter reproaches, wound it with covert pangs and make it beat anxiously in your moment of bliss, or crush even one of those tender blossoms woven into your dark curls, when you go with him to the altar . . . Oh, never, never! May your sky be clear, may your sweet smile be bright and happiness, which you gave to another, a lonely, grateful heart!
God in heaven! A whole moment of bliss! Is that not sufficient even for a man's entire life? . . ." - Fyodor Dosteovsky, White Nights, Page 56
When the Object of our Affections do not Love us in Return
"Heavens, how joy and happiness lend beauty to a person! How the heart overflows with love! You seem to want to pour all it holds into the heart of another, so that everything turns to gaiety and laughter. And how infectious that gladness is! Yesterday the words held so much comfort, such kindliness towards me in heart . . . how she danced attendance on me, so affectionate, how she cheered and soothed my heart! Ah, how flirtatious sheer happiness can be! And I took it all at face value; I thought she . . .
Good lord, though, how on earth could I have thought such a thing? How could I have been so blind, when it had all been appropriated by another, none of it was mine; when eventually even that same gentleness of hers, her solicitude, her love . . . yes, love for me - was nothing but gladness at the imminent prospect of a tryst with another, an urge to thrust her happiness on to me too? . . . When he failed to arrive, after we had waited in vain, she fell to frowning, she quailed and lost heart." - Fyodor Dosteovsky, White Nights, Page 38 and 39
This is a short story by Dosteovsky about a man who falls in love with a woman who seemingly lets on only herself to be in love with another man.
Christ alone had the monopoly on Truth
"The ancient philosophers knew very little of these important truths; Jesus Christ alone has expressed them divinely well and in a manner so clear and familiar that the coarsest of minds have grasped them. Thus his gospel has entirely changed the course of human affairs; he has brought us to know the kingdom of heaven, or that perfect republic of minds which deserves the title of City of God, whose admirable laws he has disclosed to us." - G.W. Leibniz, Discourse on Metaphysics, Page 40 and 41
Only Truth is found in and by Christ alone
G.W. Leibniz Does Not Believe God Causes But Rather Permits Evil
For Leibniz Evil is merely permitted.
"We can say also that God wills everything that is an object of his particular volition. But we must make a distinction with respect to the objects of his general volition, such as the actions of other creatures, particularly the actions of those that are reasonable, actions with which God wishes to concur. For, if the action is good in itself, we can say that God wills it and sometimes commands it, even when it does not take place. But if the action is evil in itself and becomes good only by accident, because the course of things (particularly punishment and atonement) corrects its evilness and repays the evil with interest in such a way that in the end there is more perfection in the whole sequence than if the evil had not occurred, then we must say that God permits this but does not will it, even though he concurs with it because of the laws of nature he has established and because he knows how to draw a greater good from it." - G.W. Leibniz, Discourse on Metaphysics, Page 7
God alone is the light that enlightens everyone
"God is the sun and the light of souls, the light that lights every man that comes into this world, and this is not an opinion new to our times. After Holy Scripture and the Church Fathers, who have always preferred Plato to Aristotle, I remember having previously noted that from the time of the Scholastics, several believed that God is the light of the soul and, in their way of speaking, the active intellect of the rational soul." - G.W. Leibniz, Discourse on Metaphysics and Other Essays, Page 30
The Bible says Christ is the light of every man in John 1. This is Epistemological, along with Hebrews 6.