Fyodor Dostoevsky Quotes

The absurd is only too necessary on earth. The world stands on absurdities.

Power is given only to him who dares to stoop and take it ... one must have the courage to dare.

If they drive God from the earth, we shall shelter Him underground.

My God, but what do I care about the laws of nature and arithmatic if for some reason these laws and two times two is four are not to my liking?

I almost do not exist now and I know it; God knows what lives in me in place of me.

I am a sick man...I am a spiteful man. An unattractive man. I think that my liver hurts.

Everything will come in due course, if you have the gumption to wait for it.

Besides, nowadays, almost all capable people are terribly afraid of being ridiculous, and are miserable because of it.

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.

The world stands on absurdities, and without them perhaps nothing at all would happen.

Whoever has experienced the power and the unrestrained ability to humiliate another human being automatically loses his own sensations. Tyranny is a habit, it has its own organic life, it develops finally into a disease. The habit can kill and coarsen the very best man or woman to the level of a beast. Blood and power intoxicate ... the return of the human dignity, repentance and regeneration becomes almost impossible.

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.

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

When . . . in the course of all these thousands of years has man ever acted in accordance with his own interests?

Such power!" Adelaida cried all at once, peering greedily at the portrait over her sister's shoulder. "Where? What power?" Lizaveta Prokofyevna asked sharply. "Such beauty has power," Adelaida said hotly. "You can overturn the world with such beauty.

The consciousness of life is higher than life.

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

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.

I'm drunk but truthful.

I am strongly convinced that not only too much consciousness but even any consciousness at all is a sickness.

No, evidently habit means a lot. The devil knows what habit can do to a person.

He was one of the numerous and varied legion of dullards, of half-animated abortions, conceited, half-educated coxcombs, who attach themselves to the idea most in fashion only to vulgarize it and who caricature every cause they serve, however sincerely.

For a woman, all resurrection, all salvation, from whatever perdition, lies in love; in fact, it is her only way to it.

But gamblers know how a man can sit for almost twenty-four hours at cards, without looking to right, or to left.

Intelligence alone is not nearly enough when it comes to acting wisely.

- What is a Socialist? - That's when all are equal and all have property in common, there are no marriages, and everyone has any religion and laws he likes best. You are not old enough to understand that yet.

The greatest happiness is to know the source of unhappiness.

--you wouldn't have hurt me like this for nothing. So what have I done? How have I wronged you? Tell me.

And in vain does the dreamer rummage about in his old dreams, raking them over as though they were a heap of cinders, looking into these cinders for some spark, however tiny, to fan it into a flame so as to warm his chilled blood by it and revive in it all that he held so dear before, all that touched his heart, that made his blood course through his veins, that drew tears from his eyes, and that so splendidly deceived him!

Filled with rapture, his soul yearned for freedom, space, vastness. Over him the heavenly dome, full of quiet, shining stars, hung boundlessly. From the zenith to the horizon the still-dim Milky Way stretched its double strand. Night, fresh and quiet, almost unstirring, enveloped the earth. The white towers and golden domes of the church gleamed in the sapphire sky. The luxuriant autumn asleep till morning. The silence of the earth seemed to merge with the silence of the heavens and the mystery of the earth touched the mystery of the stars.

From a hundred rabbits you can't make a horse.

For I love the empress of my soul. I love and I cannot but love. You yourself see the whole of me. I shall fly to her, fall down before her: you were right to walk past me.. farewell and forget your victim, never trouble yourself more!

... active love is a harsh and fearful thing compared with the love in dreams. Love in dreams thirsts for immediate action, quickly performed, and with everyone watching. Indeed, it will go as far as the giving even of one's life, provided it does not take long but is soon over, as on stage, and eveyone is looking on and praising. Whereas active love is labor and persistence, and for some people, perhaps, a whole science.

It’s not God that I don’t accept, Alyosha, only I most respectfully return him the ticket.

God is the pain of the fear of death

Talking nonsense is the sole privilege mankind possesses over the other organisms. It's by talking nonsense that one gets to the truth! I talk nonsense, therefore I'm human

One circumstance tormented me then: Namely, that no one else was like me, and I was like no one else. I am only one, and they are all.

I drink because I wish to multiply my sufferings.

I say let the world go to hell, but I should always have my tea.

Every blade of grass, every insect, ant, and golden bee, all so amazingly know their path, though they have not intelligence, they bear witness to the mystery of God and continually accomplish it themselves.

Because everyone is guilty for everyone else. For all the 'wee ones,' because there are little children and big children. All people are 'wee ones.' And I'll go for all of them, because there must be someone who will go for all of them.

Man is fond of counting his troubles, but he does not count his joys. If he counted them up as he ought to, he would see that every lot has enough happiness provided for it.

It is easier for a Russian to become an Atheist, than for any other nationality in the world. And not only does a Russian 'become an Atheist,' but he actually BELIEVES IN Atheism, just as though he had found a new faith, not perceiving that he has pinned his faith to a negation. Such is our anguish of thirst!

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

.. But do you understand, I cry to him, do you understand that along with happiness, in the exact same way, in perfectly equal proportion, man also needs unhappiness

Man is bound to lie about himself

And, indeed, I will at this point ask an idle question on my own account: which is better — cheap happiness or exalted sufferings? Well, which is better?

If God does not exist, then everything is permissible.