Fyodor Dostoevsky Quotes

I want peace; yes, I'd sell the whole world for a farthing, straight off, so long as I was left in peace. Is the world to go to pot, or am I to go without my tea? I say that the world may go to pot for me so long as I always get my tea. Did you know that, or not? Well, anyway, I know that I am a blackguard, a scoundrel, an egoist, a sluggard.

That's always the way with fanatics; they cross themselves at the tavern and throw stones at the temple.

Life is what matters, life alone - the continuous, eternal process of discovering life - and not the discovery itself.

The cleverest of all, in my opinion, is the man who calls himself a fool at least once a month.

But people will laugh at all sorts of things.

If the spirit has passed through a great many sensations, possibly it can no longer be sated with them, but grows more excited, and demands more sensations, and stronger and stronger ones, until at length it falls exhausted.

Being at a loss to resolve these questions, I am resolved to leave them without any resolution.

I am told that the proximity of punishment arouses real repentance in the criminal and sometimes awakens a feeling of genuine remorse in the most hardened heart; I am told this is due to fear.

Ah, Misha, he has a stormy spirit. His mind is in bondage. He is haunted by a great, unsolved doubt. He is one of those who don't want millions, but an answer to their questions.

Man is sometimes extraordinarily, passionately, in love with suffering.

It was a marvelous night, the sort of night one only experiences when one is young. The sky was so bright, and there were so many stars that, gazing upward, one couldn't help wondering how so many whimsical, wicked people could live under such a sky.

I used to imagine adventures for myself, I invented a life, so that I could at least exist somehow.

There is no virtue if there is no immortality.

God knows what lives in me in place of me.

The mystery of human existence lies not in just staying alive, but in finding something to live for.

You sensed that you should be following a different path, a more ambitious one, you felt that you were destined for other things but you had no idea how to achieve them and in your misery you began to hate everything around you.

Here is a commandment for you: seek happiness in sorrow. Work, work tirelessly.

No, I can't admit it. Brother,' said Alyosha suddenly, with flashing eyes, 'you said just now, is there a being in the whole world who would have the right to forgive and could firgive? But there is a Being and He can forgive everything, all and for all, because He gave His innocent blood for all and everything. You have forgotten Him, and on Him is built the edifice, and it is to Him they cry aloud, "Thou art just, O Lord, for Thy ways are revealed!

I walked along Nevsky Avenue.Actually it was more torture, humiliation, and bilious irritation than a stroll.

Every man looks out for himself, and he has the happiest life who manages to hoodwink himself best of all.

At some thoughts one stands perplexed, especially at the sight of men's sin, and wonders whether one should use force or humble love. Always decide to use humble love. If you resolve on that once for all, you may subdue the whole world.

I will not and cannot believe that evil is the normal condition of mankind.

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!

Without God all things are permitted.

The essence of religious feeling does not come under any sort of reasoning or atheism, and has nothing to do with any crimes or misdemeanors. There is something else here, and there will always be something else - something that the atheists will for ever slur over; they will always be talking of something else.

They won't let me ... I can't be ... good!

Oh I've plenty of time, my time is entirely my own.

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

I wanted to pray for an hour, but I keep thinking and thinking, and always sick thoughts, and my head aches - what is the use of praying? - it's only a sin! It is strange, too, that I am not sleepy: in great, too great sorrow, after the first outbursts one is always sleepy. Men condemned to death, they say, sleep very soundly on the last night. And so it must be, it si the law of nature, otherwise their strength would not hold out... I lay down on the sofa but I did not sleep...

He walked on without resting. He had a terrible longing for some distraction, but he did not know what to do, what to attempt. A new overwhelming sensation was gaining more and more mastery over him every moment; this was an immeasurable, almost physical, repulsion for everything surrounding him, an obstinate, malignant feeling of hatred. All who met him were loathsome to him - he loathed their faces, their movements, their gestures. If anyone had addressed him, he felt that he might have spat at him or bitten him... .

Two and two make four. Nature doesn't ask your advice. She isn't interested in your preferences or whether or not you approve of her laws. You must accept nature as she is with all the consequences that that implies.

At that point I ought to have gone away, but a strange sensation rose up in me, a sort of defiance of fate, a desire to challenge it, to put out my tongue at it. I laid down the largest stake allowe-four thousand gulden-and lost it. Then, getting hot, I pulled out all I had left, staked it on the same number, and lost again, after which I walked away from the table as though I were stunned. I could not even grasp what had happened to me.

I am a sick man...I am a spiteful man. I am a most unpleasant man.

Occasionally I was so much better that I could go out; but the streets used to put me in such a rage that I would lock myself up for days rather than go out, even if I were well enough to do so! I could not bear to see all those preoccupied, anxious-looking creatures continuously surging along the streets past me! Why are they always anxious? What is the meaning of their eternal care and worry? It is their wickedness, their perpetual detestable malice-that's what it is-they are all full of malice, malice!

Sarcasm: the last refuge of modest and chaste-souled people when the privacy of their soul is coarsely and intrusively invaded.

To study the meaning of man and of life — I am making significant progress here. I have faith in myself. Man is a mystery: if you spend your entire life trying to puzzle it out, then do not say that you have wasted your time. I occupy myself with this mystery, because I want to be a man.

There is only one way to salvation, and that is to make yourself responsible for all men's sins. As soon as you make yourself responsible in all sincerity for everything and for everyone, you will see at once that this is really so, and that you are in fact to blame for everyone and for all things.

Right attitudes produces right action

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.

Trifles, trifles are what matter!

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?

a man is no example for a woman. It’s a different thing.

Man is stupid, phenomenally stupid.

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

...it all, maybe, most likely, indeed, might turn out for the best.

To a commonplace man of limited intellect, for instance, nothing is simpler than to imagine himself an original character, and to revel in that belief without the slightest misgiving.

Talking nonsense is man's only privilege that distinguishes him from all other organisms.

The best way to keep a prisoner from escaping is to make sure he never knows he's in prison.