Fyodor Dostoyevsky Quotes (341 Quotes)

Life had stepped into the place of theory and something quite different would work itself out in his mind.

When reason fails, the devil helps!

It is a law of nature that every decent man on earth is bound to be a coward and a slave

Alyosha was certain that no one in the whole world ever would want to hurt him, and what is more, he knew that no one could hurt him. This was for him an axiom, assumed once and for all without question. And he went his way without hesitation, relying on it.

For all is like an ocean, all flows and connects; touch it in one place and it echoes at the other end of the world.

I think the devil doesn't exist, but man has created him, he has created him in his own image and likeness.

Love the animals. God has given them the rudiments of thought and joy untroubled. Don't harrass them, don't deprive them of happiness, don't work against God's intent.

There is a great and unresolved thought in him. He's one of those who don't need millions, but need to resolve their thought.

You've already said all that. Don't embroider on it, but prove it!

Why, you are so eaten up with pride and vanity that you'll end by eating up one another, that's what I prophecy.

And why, just at the moment when he had brought away the embryo of his idea from the old woman had he dropped at once upon a conversation about her?

She looked much younger than her age, indeed, which is almost always the case with women who retain serenity of spirit, sensitiveness and pure sincere warmth of heart to old age.

Can a man of perception respect himself at all?

One's own free and unfettered volition, one's own caprice, however wild, one's own fancy, inflamed sometimes to the point of madness - that is the one best and greatest good, which is never taken into consideration because it cannot fit into any classification and the omission of which sends all systems and theories to the devil.

Beggars, especially noble beggars, should never show themselves in the street; they should ask for alms through the newspapers. It's still possible to love one's neighbor abstractly, and even occasionally from a distance, but hardly ever up close.

He saw that the Prisoner had listened carefully all the time, looking gently in his face--But evidently he did not want to reply. The old man longed for Him to say something, however bitter and terrible. But he suddenly approached the old man in silence and softly kissed him on the forehead.

Instead of giving a firm foundation for setting the conscience of man at rest forever, Thou didst choose all that is exceptional, vague and enigmatic.

Paradise is hidden in each one of use, it is concealed within me too, right now, and if I wish, it will come for me in reality, tomorrow even, and for the rest of my life.

Those innocent eyes cut my soul like a razor...however, in a depraved man this, too, might be only a sensual attraction.

God knows what is in me in place of me.

Hm … yes, all is in a man's hands and he lets it all slip from cowardice, that's an axiom

There are chance meetings with strangers that interest us from the first moment, before a word is spoken.

I believe this is so and I'm prepared to vouch for it, because it seems to me that the meaning of man's life consists in proving to himself every minute that he's a man and not a piano key. And man will keep proving it and paying for it with his own skin; he will turn into a troglodyte if need be. And, since this is so, I cannot help rejoicing that things are still the way they are and that, for the time being, nobody knows worth a damn what determines our desires.

Twice two is four is, in my opinion, nothing but impudence.

Do you know that centuries will pass and mankind will proclaim with the mouth of its wisdom and science that there is no crime, and therefore no sin, but only hungry men? Feed them first, then ask virtue of them.

I am sorry I can say nothing more to console you, for love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing compared with love in dreams. Love in dreams is greedy for immediate action, rapidly performed and in the sight of all. Men will even give their lives if only the ordeal does not last long but is soon over, with all looking on and applauding as though on stage. But active love is labor and fortitude, and for some people too, perhaps, a complete science.

Let me be sinful before everyone, but so that everyone will forgive me, and that is paradise. Am I not in paradise now?

The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to such a pass that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love, and in order to occupy and distract himself without love he gives way to passions and coarse pleasures, and sinks to bestiality in his vices, all from continual lying to other men and to himself.

Woe to the man who offends a small child!

Oh I've plenty of time, my time is entirely my own.