Fyodor Dostoevsky Quotes

I gave up caring about anything, and all the problems disappeared. And it was after that that I found out the truth . I learnt the truth last November on the third of November, to be precise and I remember every instant since. ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky

The more incompetent one feels, the more eager he is to fight. ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky

In order to love simply, it is necessary to know how to show love. ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky

Man is stupid, phenomenally stupid. ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky

Since I wasn't consulted at the time of the creation of the world, I reserve for myself the right to have my own opinion about it. ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky

Money is coined liberty, and so it is ten times dearer to a man who is deprived of freedom. If money is jingling in his pocket, he is half consoled, even though he cannot spend it. ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky

Then Christ will say to us, 'Come you also! Come you drunkards! Come you weaklings! Come you depraved!' And he will say to us, 'Vile creatures, you in the image of the beast and you who bear his mark. All the same, you come too!' And the wise and prudent will say, 'Lord, why are you welcoming them? And he will say, 'O wise and prudent, I am welcoming them because not one of them has ever judged himself worthy. And he will stretch out his arms to us, and we shall fall at his feet, and burst into sobs, and then we shall understand everything, everything! Lord, your kingdom come! ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky

Above all, don't lie to yourself. ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky

The consciousness of life is higher than life. ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky

Everywhere I am the object of an unbelievable esteem, the interest in me is, quite simply, tremendous. ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky

The more you succeed in loving, the more you'll be convinced at the existence of God and the immortality of your soul. ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky

What is hell? ... The suffering that comes from the consciousness that one is no longer able to love. ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky

Trifles, trifles are what matter! ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky

He who masters the grey everyday is a hero. ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky

Russia was a slave in Europe but would be a master in Asia. ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky

It's a burden to us even to be human beings-men with our own real body and blood; we are ashamed of it, we think it a disgrace and try to contrive to be some sort of impossible generalized man. ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky

Perhaps a normal man is supposed to be stupid-how do we know? Perhaps it's even very beautiful. ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky

I must have justice, or I will destroy myself. And not justice in some remote and infinite time and space, but here on Earth ... I want to see with my own eyes the lamb lie down with the lion and the victim rise up and embrace his murderer. I want to be there when everyone suddenly understands what it has all been about. All the religions of the world are built on this longing, and I am a believer. ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky

But man is so addicted to systems and to abstract conclusions that he is prepared deliberately to distort the truth, to close his eyes and ears, but justify his logic at all cost. ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky

Sometimes we desire absolute nonsense because in our stupidity we see in this nonsense the easiest way of attaining some conjectural good. ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky

To cook your hare you must first catch it. ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky

Thus, as a result of heightened consciousness, a man feels as if it's all right if he's bad as long as he knows it- as though that were any consolation. ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky

He seemed, indeed, to accept everything without the least condemnation though often grieving bitterly. ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky

You simply can't imagine what men will say! ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky

Can a man possessing conciousness ever really respect himself? ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky

I never have frustrations. The reason is to wit: Of at first I don't succeed, I quit! ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky

If you love all things, you will also attain the divine mystery that is in all things. For then your ability to perceive the truth will grow every day, and your mind will open itself to an all-embracing love ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky

An anguish of longing would boil up inside me; a hysterical thirst for contradictions and contrasts would appear, and I would embark on dissipations. ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky

In summer, intolerable closeness; in winter, unendurable cold. All the floors were rotten. Filth on the floors an inch thick; one could slip and fall ... ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky

In the newspapers I read a biography about an American. He left his whole huge fortune to factories and for the positive sciences, his skeleton to the students at the academy there, and his skin to make a drum so as to have the American national anthem drummed on it day and night. ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky

If you love everything, you will perceive the divine mystery of things. ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky

To love another person is to see them as God intended them to be. ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky

To kill for murder is an immeasurably greater evil than the crime itself. Murder by legal process is immeasurably more dreadful than murder by a brigand. A man who is murdered by brigands is killed at night in a forest or somewhere else, and up to the last moment he still hopes that he will be saved. There have been instances when a man whose throat had already been cut, was still hoping, or running away or begging for his life to be spared. But here all this last hope, which makes it ten times easier to die, is taken away FOR CERTAIN; here you have been sentenced to death, and the whole terrible agony lies in the fact that you will most certainly not escape, and there is no agony greater than that. Take a soldier and put him in front of a cannon in battle and fire at him and he will still hope, but read the same soldier his death sentence FOR CERTAIN, and he will go mad or burst out crying. Who says that human nature is capable of bearing this without madness? Why this cruel, hideous, unnecessary, and useless mockery? Possibly there are men who have sentences of death read out to them and have been given time to go through this torture, and have then been told, You can go now, you've been reprieved. Such men could perhaps tell us. It was of agony like this and of such horror that Christ spoke. No, you can't treat a mean like that. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Yes, that's right ... love should come before logic ... Only then will man come to understand the meaning of life. ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky

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. ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky

Beauty would save the world. ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky

On our earth we can only love withsuffering and through suffering. ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky

Taking a new step ... is what people fear most. ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky

I am crazy about mysterious things. ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky

If there is no God, then I am God. ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky

The enemies of living life; outdated little liberals, afraid of their own independence; lackeys of thought, enemies of the person and freedom, decrepit preachers of carrion and rot! What do they have: gray heads, the golden mean, the most abject and philistine giftlessness, envious equality, equality without personal dignity, equality as understood by a lackey or a Frenchman of the year ninety-three ... And scoundrells, above all, scoundrels, scoundrels everywhere! ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky

A true friend of mankind whose heart has but once quivered in compassion over the sufferings of the people, will understand and forgive all the impassable alluvial filth in which they are submerged, and will be able to discover the diamonds in the filth. ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky

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

I have seen the truth. It is not as though I had invented it in my mind. I have seen it, SEEN IT and the living image of it has filled my soul forever ... ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky

I've long stopped worrying about who invented whom - God man or man God. ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky

Psychology lures even most serious people into romancing, and quite unconsciously. ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky

For example, I'm terribly proud. I'm as mistrustful and as sensitive as a hunchback or a dwarf; but, in truth, I've experienced some moments when if someone had slapped my face, I might even have been grateful for it. I'm being serious. I probably would have been able to derive a peculiar sort of pleasure from it-the pleasure of despair, naturally, but the most intense pleasures occur in despair, especially when you're very acutely aware of the hopelessness of your own predicament. ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky

I agree that two and two make four is an excellent thing; but to give everything its due, two and two make five is also a very fine thing. ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky

Accept suffering and achieve atonement through it - that is what you must do. ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky

Of course I shall go astray often ... for who does not make mistakes? But I cannot go far wrong for I have seen the truth. ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky

Remember, too, every day, and whenever you can, repeat to yourself, Lord, have mercy on all who appear before Thee today. For every hour and every moment thousands of men leave life on this earth, and their souls appear before God. And how many of them depart in solitude, unknown, sad, dejected that no one mourns for them or even knows whether they have lived or not! ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky

Humiliate the reason and distort the soul. ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky

Every member of the society spies on the rest, and it is his duty to inform against them. All are slaves and equal in their slavery ... The great thing about it is equality ... Slaves are bound to be equal. ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky

Gambling is a most foolish and imprudent pursuit. ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky

My soul bleeds and the blood steadily, silently, disturbingly slowly, swallows me whole. ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky

Love animals: God has given them the rudiments of thought and joy untroubled. Do not trouble their joy, don't harrass them, don't deprive them of their happiness, don't work against God's intent. Man, do not pride yourself on superiority to animals; they are without sin, and you, with your greatness, defile the earth by your appearance on it, and leave the traces of your foulness after you - alas, it is true of almost every one of us! ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky

Russians alone are able to combine so many opposites in themselves at one and the same time. ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky

Man, so long as he remains free, has no more constant and agonizing anxiety than find as quickly as possible someone to worship. ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky

There is no object on earth which cannot be looked at from a cosmic point of view. ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky

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. ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky

Reason and Knowledge have always played a secondary, subordinate, auxiliary role in the life of peoples, and this will always be the case. A people is shaped and driven forward by an entirely different kind of force, one which commands and coerces them and the origin of which is obscure and inexplicable despite the reality of its presence. ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky

I can see the sun, but even if I cannot see the sun, I know that it exists. And to know that the sun is there - that is living. ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky

To achieve perfection, one must first begin by not understanding many things! And if we understand too quickly, we may not understand well. ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky

If not reason, then the devil. ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky

Only through suffering can we find ourselves. ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky

There is something spiteful and yet open-hearted about you ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

If man has one good memory to go by, that may be enough to save him. ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky

If the people around you are spiteful and callous and will not hear you, fall down before them and beg their forgiveness; for in truth you are to blame for their not wanting to hear you. ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky

The greater the stupidity, the greater the clarity. Stupidity is brief and guileless, while wit equivocates and hides. Wit is a scoundrel, while stupidity is honest and sincere. ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky

The death of a child is the greatest reason to doubt the existence of God. ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky

One could never judge a man without seeing him close, for oneself ... ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky

At first, art imitates life. Then life will imitate art.Then life will find its very existence from the arts. ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky

Man is a creative animal, doomed to strive toward a goal, engaged in full-time engineering. ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky

Homeopathic doses are perhaps the strongest. ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky

Nothing is more seductive for a man than his freedom of conscience, but nothing is a greater cause of suffering. ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky

'Ever seen a leaf - a leaf from a tree?' 'Yes.' I saw one recently - a yellow one, a little green, wilted at the edges. Blown by the wind. When I was a little boy, I used to shut my eyes in winter and imagine a green leaf, with veins on it, and the sun shining ... ' 'What's this - an allegory?' No; why? Not an allegory - a leaf, just a leaf. A leaf is good. Everything's good.' ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky

I have been tortured with longing to believe ... and the yearning grows stronger the more cogent the intellectual difficulties stand in the way. ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky

If it were considered desirable to destroy a human being, the only thing necessary would be to give his work a character of uselessness ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky

If the person laughs well, they are a good person. ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky

When I look back on my past and think how much time I wasted on nothing, how much time has been lost in futilities, errors, laziness, incapacity to live; how little I appreciated it, how many times I sinned against my heart and soul-then my heart bleeds. Life is a gift, life is happiness, every minute can be an eternity of happiness. ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky

To be in love is not the same as loving. You can be in love with a woman and still hate her. ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky

To love someone means to see him as God intended him. ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky

It seemed clear to me that life and the world somehow depended upon me now. I may almost say that the world now seemed created for me alone: if I shot myself the world would cease to be at least for me. I say nothing of its being likely that nothing will exist for anyone when I am gone, and that as soon as my consciousness is extinguished the whole world will vanish too and become void like a phantom , as a mere appurtenance of my consciousness, for possibly all this world and all these people are only me myself. ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky

Shower on him every blessing, drown him in a sea of happiness, give him economic prosperity such that he should have nothing else to do but sleep, eat cakes, and busy himself with the continuation of the species, and even then, out of sheer ingratitude, sheer spite, man would play you some nasty trick. ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky

I go to spread the tidings, I want to spread the tidings of what? Of the truth , for I have seen it, have seen it with my own eyes , have seen it in all its glory . ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky

The jealous are the readiest of all to forgive, and all women know it. ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky

Even as I approach the gambling hall, as soon as I hear, two rooms away, the jingle of money poured out on the table, I almost go into convulsions. ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky

To kill someone for committing murder is a punishment incomparably worse than the crime itself. Murder by legal sentence is immeasurably more terrible than murder by brigands. ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky

You are a man still young, so to say, in your first youth and so put intellect above everything ... ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky

Woe to the suicides! I believe that there can be none more miserable than they. Oh, there are some who remain proud and fierce even in hell, in spite of their certain knowledge and contemplation of the absolute truth; there are some fearful ones who have given themselves over to Satan and his proud spirit entirely. For such, hell is voluntary and ever consuming; they are tortured by their own choice. For they have cursed themselves, cursing God and life. And they will burn in the fire of their own wrath forever and yearn for death and annihilation. But they will not attain to death. ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky

Remember that you must never sell your soul. Never accept payment in advance ... Never give a work to the printer before it is finished. This is the worst thing you can do ... It constitutes the murder of your own ideas. ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky

All people seem to be divided into'ordinary'and 'extraordinary'. The ordinary people must lead a life of strict obedience and have no right to transgress the law because?theyare ordinary.Whereas the extraordinary people have the right to commit any crime they like and transgress the law in any way just because they happen to be extraordinary. ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky

I do not wish you much happiness
it would bore you; I do not wish you trouble either; but, following the people's philosophy, I will simply repeat: 'Live more' and try somehow not to be too bored; this useless wish I am adding on my own. ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky

Atheism: It seeks to replace in itself the moral power of religion, in order to appease the spiritual thirst of parched humanity and save it; not by Christ, but by force. ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky

I am a fool with a heart but no brains, and you are a fool with brains but no heart; and we're both unhappy, and we both suffer. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Let us first fulfill Christ's injunction ourselves and only then venture to expect it of our children. Otherwise we are not fathers, but enemies of our children, and they are not our children, but our enemies, and we have made them our enemies ourselves. ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky

But try getting blindly carried away by your feelings, without reasoning, without a primary cause, driving consciousness away at least for a time; start hating, or fall in love, only so as not to sit with folded arms. ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky

Men like to to count their troubles; few calculate their happiness. ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky

And it is so simple ... The one thing is - love thy neighbor as thyself - that is the one thing. That is all, nothing else is needed. You will instantly find how to live. ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky

If there is no God, everything is permitted. ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky