Fyodor Dostoyevsky Quotes (341 Quotes)

Don't be overwise; fling yourself straight into life, without deliberation; don't be afraid - the flood will bear you to the bank and set you safe on your feet again.

Kto sumienie posiada, niech cierpi, skoro zda? sobie sprawe; z pomy?ki. Be;dzie mu to kara; - obok katorgi.

That's just the point: an honest and sensitive man opens his heart, and the man of business goes on eating - and then he eats you up.

What's most revolting is that one is really sad! No, it's better at home. Here at least one blames others for everything and excuses oneself.

For though your mind is active enough, your heart is darkened with corruption, and without a pure heart there can be no full or genuine sensibility.

In despair there are the most intense enjoyments, especially when one is acutely conscious of the hopelessness of one's position.

Suppose, gentleman, that man is not stupid.

Alyosha brought with him something his father had never known before: a complete absence of contempt for him and a consistent kindness, a perfectly natural, unaffected devotion to the old man who deserved so little.

Brother, I'm not depressed and haven't lost spirit. Life everywhere is life, life is in ourselves and not in the external. There will be people near me, and to be a human being among human beings, and remain one forever, no matter what misfortunes befall, not to become depressed, and not to falter - this is what life is, herein lies its task.

Father monks, why do you fast! Why do you expect reward in heaven for that?...No, saintly monk, you try being virtuous in the world, do good to society, without shutting yourself up in a monastery at other people's expense, and without expecting a reward up aloft for it--you'll find that a bit harder.

Hell is the inability to love.

I really feel obliged to go to this confounded luncheon.

It's always worthwhile speaking to a clever man.

Love life more than the meaning of it?

She has known all the time that I cared for her--though I never said a word of my love to her--

There are people who feel deeply but are somehow beaten down. Their buffoonery is something like a spiteful irony against those to whom they dare not speak the truth directly because of a long-standing, humiliating timidity before them. Believe me, Krasotkin, such buffoonery is sometimes extremely tragic.

We are full of hatred, my girl, you and I! We are both full of hatred! As though we could forgive on another! Save him, and I'll worship you all my life.

Your poem was in praise of Jesus, not in blame of Him--as you meant it to be.

If he's alive he has everything in his power! Whose fault is it he doesn't understand that

We must never forget that human motives are generally far more complicated than we are apt to suppose, and that we can very rarely accurately describe the motives of another.

Dreams appear much more prominent and clear when the dreamer is in an unhealthy state - they have an extraordinary semblance of reality. Most monstrous pictures are put together but all the circumstances are so subtly interwoven the details so artistically harmonious in every minute respect as to defy human imitation. Such morbid dreams are always recollected for very long and produce strong impressions on the disordered and already excited organs of the dreamer.

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

The execution of the deed is sometimes masterfully done, in the most ingenious fashion, yet the control of the individual actions that comprise it, the origin of those actions, is diffuse and is associated with various morbid sensations. Rather like a dream.

When reason fails, the devil helps!

For what is man without desires, without free will, and without the power of choice but a stop in an organ pipe?

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

The only gain of civilisation for mankind is the greater capacity for cariety of sensations - and absolutely nothing more.

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.

But I always liked side-paths, little dark back-alleys behind the main road- there one finds adventures and surprises, and precious metal in the dirt.

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.

Here is a commandment for you: seek happiness in sorrow. Work, work tirelessly.

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

It's not God that I do not accept, you understand, it is this world of God's, created by God, that I do not accept and cannot agree to accept.

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.

Since man cannot live without miracles, he will provide himself with miracles of his own making. He will believe in witchcraft and sorcery, even though he may otherwise be a heretic, an atheist, and a rebel.

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.

We don't understand that life is heaven, for we have only to understand that and it will at once be fulfilled in all its beauty, we shall embrace each other and weep.

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

In every idea of genius or in every new human idea, or, more simply still, in every serious human idea born in anyone's brain, there is something that cannot possibly be conveyed to others.

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

Eh, brother, but nature has to be corrected and guided, otherwise we'd all drown in prejudices. Without that there wouldn't be even a single great man.

Man grows used to everything, the scoundrel!

The fear of appearances is the first symptom of impotence.

You see I kept asking myself then: why am I so stupid that if others are stupid-and I know they are-yet I won't be wiser?

Gentlemen, I am tormented by questions; answer them for me.

It was from feeling oneself that one had reached the last barrier, that it was horrible, but that it could not be otherwise; that there was no escape for you; that you never could become a different man; that even if time and faith were still left you to change into something different you would most likely not wish to change; or if you did wish to, even then you would do nothing; because perhaps in reality there was nothing for you to change into.

The reason why I consider myself a clever man is simply because I could never in my life finish anything I'd started. All right, I am a talker, a harmless, boring talker as we all are. But what can I do if the direct and sole purpose of every intelligent man is to talk, that is to say, to waste his time deliberately?

Alyosha's heart could not bear uncertainty, for the nature of his love was always active. He could not love passively; once he loved, he immediately also began to help.

But I ask again, are there many like Thee? And could thou believe for one moment that men, too, could face such a temptation? Is the nature of men such, that they can reject miracles and at the great moments of their life, the moments of their deepest, most agonizing spiritual difficulties, cling only to the free verdict of their heart? ... and thou didst hope that man, following Thee, would cling to god and not ask for a miracle.

For even those who have renounced Christianity and attack it still follow the Christian ideal.