“Generally speaking, our prisoners were capable of loving animals, and if they had been allowed they would have delighted to rear large numbers of domestic animals and birds in the prison. And I wonder what other activity could better have softened and refined their harsh and brutal natures than this. But it was not allowed. Neither the regulations nor the nature of the prison made it possible.’”
More from Fyodor Dostoyevsky
“I want to get to know you once for all, and I want you to know me. And then say good-bye.…”
“I am too young and I’ve loved you too much.”
“Yet in their absence I seemed to love them so much.”
“What is hell? I maintain that it is the suffering of being unable to love.”