By the experience of active love. Strive to love your neighbour actively and indefatigably. In as far as you advance in love you will grow surer of the reality of God and of the immortality of your soul. If you attain to perfect self-forgetfulness in the love of your neighbour, then you will believe without doubt, and no doubt can possibly enter your soul. This has been tried. This is certain.
Fyodor DostoevskyThe degree of a nation’s civilization can be seen in the way it treats its prisoners
Fyodor DostoevskyWhat tender and devoted mother wouldn't be dismayed and ill with terror at her son's or daughter's stepping even one hair's breath off the beaten track. No, better let him be happy and live in comfort without originality, is what every mother thinks when she rocks the cradle. The only person among us who can fail to reach the general's rank is the original man - in other words, the man who won't be quiet.
Fyodor DostoevskyThere is nothing higher and stronger and more wholesome and useful for life in later years than some good memory, especially a memory connected with childhood, with home.
Fyodor DostoevskyAtheism: 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 DostoevskyI 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 DostoevskyEh, 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.
Fyodor DostoevskyEven 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 DostoevskyPeople talk sometimes of a bestial cruelty, but that's a great injustice and insult to the beasts; a beast can never be so cruel as a man, so artistically cruel. The tiger only tears and gnaws, that's all he can do. He would never think of nailing people by the ears, even if he were able to do it.
Fyodor DostoevskyDon’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.
Fyodor DostoevskyMy friends, ask gladness from God. Be glad as children, as birds in the sky. And let man's sin not disturb you in your efforts, do not feat that it will dampen your endeavor and keep it from being fulfilled, do not say, Sin is strong, impiety is strong, the bad environment is strong, and we are lonely and powerless, the bad environment will dampen us and keep our good endeavor from being fulfilled. Flee from such despondency, my children! There is only one salvation for you: take yourself up, and make yourself responsible for the sins of men.
Fyodor DostoevskyWhat man wants is simply independent choice, whatever that independence may cost and wherever it may lead.
Fyodor DostoevskyAlyosha'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.
Fyodor DostoevskyYou know, my boy, he said, it's impossible to love men such as they are. And yet we must. So try to do good to men by doing violence to your feelings, holding your nose, and shutting your eyes, especially shutting your eyes. Endure their villainy without anger, as much as possible; try to remember that you're a man too. For, if you're even a little above average intelligence, you'll have the propensity to judge people severely. Men are vile by nature and they'd rather love out of fear. Don't give in to such love: despise it always.
Fyodor DostoevskyA beast can never be as cruel as a human being, so artistically, so picturesquely cruel.
Fyodor DostoevskyThe pleasure of despair. But then, it is in despair that we find the most acute pleasure, especially when we are aware of the hopelessness of the situation... ...everything is a mess in which it is impossible to tell what's what, but that despite this impossibility and deception it still hurts you, and the less you can understand, the more it hurts.
Fyodor DostoevskyPain and suffering are always inevitable for a large intelligence and a deep heart. The really great men must, I think, have great sadness on earth.
Fyodor DostoevskyA cultivated and decent man cannot be vain without setting a fearfully high standard for himself, and without despising and almost hating himself at certain moments.
Fyodor Dostoevsky...to return to their 'native soil,' as they say, to the bosom, so to speak, of their mother earth, like frightened children, yearning to fall asleep on the withered bosom of their decrepit mother, and to sleep there for ever, only to escape the horrors that terrify them.
Fyodor DostoevskyWhen he has lost all hope, all object in life, man becomes a monster in his misery.
Fyodor DostoevskyAh, Father! That’s words and only words! Forgive! If he’d not been run over, he’d have come home today drunk and his only shirt dirty and in rags and he’d have fallen asleep like a log, and I should have been sousing and rinsing till daybreak, washing his rags and the children’s and then drying them by the window and as soon as it was daylight I should have been darning them. What’s the use of talking forgiveness! I have forgiven as it is!
Fyodor Dostoevsky