Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s ‘Crime and Punishment’ once again reaffirmed my belief in the superb creative abilities of Russian writers. While War and Peace was a summary on politics and society, Crime and Punishment abounds in psychological insights of human mind and emotions. Needless to say, I found his book rich in real life metaphors, a few of his wisdom lines:

1. Man is a coward, and can get accustomed to anything.

2. Money is the honey of humanity.

3. While the honest man tells his secrets, the business man hoards them up and turns them to account.

4. As a rule, we feel more or less constrained when a person with whom we have but slight acquaintance shows much curiosity to hear us; and our embarrassment becomes all the greater if the subject about to be discussed is, in our eyes, scarcely deserving of the extreme attention lavished on us.

5. Crime is a protest against a badly-organised social state of things.

6. The man who has a conscience suffers whilst acknowledging his sin. That is his punishment- to say nothing of the galleys.

7. Suffering is part and parcel of extensive intelligence and a feeling heart.

8. The foremost amongst them (men) is he who possesses marked intelligence. The man who dares much is the right man in his fellow’s opinion. The one who defies and scorns them acquires their respect!

9. Become like the sun, and men will notice you.

10. A hat is like a cake- I can always buy one at Zimmermann’s; but, as to what there is under the hat, that is a thing which can’t be bought.