Fyodor Dostoevsky Quotes

It is not the real punishment. The only effectual one, the only deterrent and softening one, lies in the recognition of sin by conscience.

My God, a moment of bliss. Why, isn't that enough for a whole lifetime?

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

Learning to love is hard and we pay dearly for it. It takes hard work and a long apprenticeship, for it is not just for a moment that we must learn to love, but forever.

In abstract love of humanity one almost always only loves oneself.

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

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.

When reason fails, the devil helps!

The whole work of man really seems to consist in nothing but proving to himself every minute that he is a man and not a piano key.

if she had ordered me to throw myself down then, I would have done it! If she had said it only as a joke, said it with contempt, spitting on me--even then I would have jumped!

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.

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.

Through error you come to the truth! I am a man because I err! You never reach any truth without making fourteen mistakes and very likely a hundred and fourteen.

The most offensive is not their lying - one can always forgive lying - lying is a delightful thing, for it leads to truth - what is offensive is that they lie and worship their own lying.

Life [had] replaced logic.

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

My friend, the truth is always implausible, did you know that? To make the truth more plausible, it's absolutely necessary to mix a bit of falsehood with it. People have always done so.

And if there's love, you can do without happiness too. Even with sorrow, life is sweet.

The meanest and most hateful thing about money is that it even gives one talent.

Speak of a wolf and you see his tail!

Sometimes a man is intensely, even passionately, attached to suffering — that is a fact.

In a way there's only a fine shade of difference between the healthy and the deranged.

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.

Killing myself was a matter of such indifference to me that I felt like waiting for a moment when it would make some difference.

In a morbid condition of the brain, dreams often have a singular actuality, vividness, and extraordinary semblance of reality.

I punish myself for my whole life, my whole life I punish.

Power is given only to those who dare to lower themselves and pick it up. Only one thing matters, one thing; to be able to dare!

Realists do not fear the results of their study.

What if man is not really a scoundrel, man in general, I mean, the whole race of mankind-then all the rest is prejudice, simply artificial terrors and there are no barriers and it's all as it should be.

I have in my own life merely carried to the extreme that which you have never ventured to carry even halfway ; and what's more, you've regarded your cowardice as prudence, and found comfort in deceiving yourselves. So that, in fact, I may be even more "alive" than you are. Do take a closer look!

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.

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

Above all, do not lie to yourself.

If he's honest, he'll steal; if he's human, he'll murder; if he's faithful, he'll deceive.

. . . finally, I couldn't imagine how I could live without books, and I stopped dreaming about marrying that Chinese prince. . . .

There is no idea, no fact, which could not be vulgarized and presented in a ludicrous light.

My friends, God is necessary for me if only because he is the one being who can be loved eternally.

Homeopathic doses are perhaps the strongest.

Destroy my desires, eradicate my ideals, show me something better, and I will follow you.

Don't think I'm talking nonsense because I'm drunk. I'm not a bit drunk. Brandy's all very well, but I need two bottles to make me drunk.

The more stupid one is, the closer one is to reality. The more stupid one is, the clearer one is. Stupidity is brief and artless, while intelligence squirms and hides itself. Intelligence is unprincipled, but stupidity is honest and straightforward.

You ache with it all; and the more mysterious it is, the more you ache.

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.

Dreams seem to be spurred on not by reason but by desire, not by the head but by the heart, and yet what complicated tricks my reason has played sometimes in dreams.

The perpetration of a crime is accompanied by illness!

But do you understand, I cry to him, do you understand that if you have the guillotine in the forefront, and with such glee, it's for the sole reason that cutting heads off is the easiest thing, and having an idea is difficult!

In such situations, of course, people don't nurse their anger silently, they moan aloud; but these are not frank, straightforward moans, there is a kind of cunning malice in them, and that's the whole point. Those very moans express the sufferer's delectation; if he did not enjoy his moans, he wouldn't be moaning.

We're always thinking of eternity as an idea that cannot be understood, something immense. But why must it be? What if, instead of all this, you suddenly find just a little room there, something like a village bath-house, grimy, and spiders in every corner, and that's all eternity is. Sometimes, you know, I can't help feeling that that's what it is.