Fyodor Dostoyevsky Quotes (341 Quotes)




    Till the last moment they dress a man up in peacock's feathers, till the last moment they hope for the good and not the bad; and though they may have premonitions of the other side of the coin, for the life of them they will not utter a real word beforehand; the thought alone makes them cringe; they wave the truth away with both hands, till the very moment when the man they've decked out so finely sticks their noses in it with his own two hands.

    But now, all of a sudden, there appeared before me the absurd, loathsomely spiderish notion of debauchery, which, without love, crudely and shamelessly begins straight off with that which is the crown of true love.



    Oh, gentlemen, perhaps I really regard myself as an intelligent man only because throughout my entire life I've never been able to start or finish anything. Granted, granted I'm a babbler, a harmless, irksome babbler, as we all are. But what's to be done if the sole and express purpose of every intelligent man is babble--that is, a deliberate pouring from empty into void.

    What makes a hero? Courage, strength, morality, withstanding adversity? Are these the traits that truly show and create a hero? Is the light truly the source of darkness or vice versa? Is the soul a source of hope or despair? Who are these so called heroes and where do they come from? Are their origins in obscurity or in plain sight?


    Equality lies only in human moral dignity. ... Let there be brothers first, then there will be brotherhood, and only then will there be a fair sharing of goods among brothers.




    Love all God's creation, the whole and every grain of sand of it. Love every leaf, every ray of God's light. Love the animals, love the plants, love everything. If you love everything, you will perceive the divine mystery in things. Once you perceive it, you will begin to comprehend it better every day. And you will come at last to love the whole world with an all-embracing love.

    One day is enough for a man to know all happiness. My dear ones, why do we quarrel, try to outshine each other and keep grudges against each other? Let's go straight into the garden, walk and play there, love, appreciate each other and glorify life.




    First you have to buy powder, pistol powder, not the damp, and not as coarse as for a cannon. Then you have to put the powder in first, and get some felt off a door. And then you have to put the bullet in afterwards, and not the bullet before the powder, or it won't go off. Do you hear, Keller? or else it won't go off. Ha-ha! Isn't that a magnificent reason, friend Keller?

    Some people have luck, and everything comes out right with them; others have none, and never a thing turns out fortunately.

    And man has actually invented God. And whats strange, what would be marvellous, is not that God should really exist the marvel is that such an idea, the idea of the necessity of God, could enter the head of such a savage, vicious beast as man.

    Innovators and men of genius have almost always been regarded as fools at the beginning (and very often at the end) of their careers.

    There are three forces, the only three forces capable of conquering and enslaving forever the conscience of these weak rebels in the interests of their own happiness. They are the miracle, the mystery and authority.

    Men reject their prophets and slay them, but they love their martyrs and honor those whom they have slain


    The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons

    It is not the brains that matter most, but that which guides them -- the character, the heart, generous qualities, progressive ideas.

    Without a firm idea of himself and the purpose of his life, man cannot live, and would sooner destroy himself than remain on earth, even if he was surrounded by bread.

    In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, 'Make us your slaves, but feed us

    You are told a lot about your education, but some beautiful, sacred memory, preserved since childhood, is perhaps the best education of all. If a man carries many such memories into life with him, he is saved for the rest of his days.

    Until you have become really, in actual fact, as brother to everyone, brotherhood will not come to pass

    I tell Thee that man is tormented by no greater anxiety than to find some one quickly to whom he can hand over that gift of freedom with which the ill-fated creature is born.

    Science which has become a great power in the lastcentury, has analyzed everything divine handed down tous in the holy books. After this cruel analysis thelearned of this world have nothing left of all thatwas sacred. But they have only analyzed the parts andoverlooked the whole, and indeed their blindness ismarvelous.

    So long as man remains free he strives for nothing so incessantly and painfully as to find someone to worship


    What is hell I maintain that it is the suffering of being unable to love

    If it were desired to reduce man to nothing, it would be necessary only to give his work a character of uselessness

    To strive consciously for an object and to engage in engineering -- that is, incessantly and eternally to make new roads, wherever they may lead.

    We always imagine eternity as something beyond our conception, something vast, vast But why must it be vast Instead of all that, what if it's one little room, like a bathhouse in the country, black and grimy and spiders in every corner, and that'

    I admit that twice two makes four is an excellent thing, but if we are to give everything its due, twice two makes five is sometimes a very charming thing too


    If you want to be respected by others the great thing is to respect yourself. Only by that, only by self-respect will you compel others to respect you.


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