Fyodor Dostoevsky Quotes

I wanted to discuss the suffering of humanity in general, but perhaps we'd better confine ourselves to the sufferings of children.

A man would still do something out of sheer perversity - he would create destruction and chaos - just to gain his point...and if all this could in turn be analyzed and prevented by predicting that it would occur, then man would deliberately go mad to prove his point.

If you wish to glimpse inside a human soul and get to know a man, don't bother analyzing his ways of being silent, of talking, of weeping, of seeing how much he is moved by noble ideas; you will get better results if you just watch him laugh. If he laughs well, he's a good man.

How many ideas have there been in the history of man which were unthinkable ten years before they appeared?

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!

It is not possible to eat me without insisting that I sing praises of my devourer?

... what you need more than anything in life is a definite position.

If he's alive, everything is in his power! Whose fault is it that he doesn't understand that?

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.

To crush, to annihilate a man utterly, to inflict on him the most terrible of punishments so that the most ferocious murderer would shudder at it and dread it beforehand, one need only give him work of an absolutely, completely useless and irrational character.

The formula 'Two and two make five' is not without its attractions.

Forgive me... for my love -for ruining you with my love.

There is nothing easier than lopping off heads and nothing harder than developing ideas.

Compassion is the chief law of human existence.

What if, when this fog scatters and flies upward, the whole rotten, slimey city goes with it, rises with the fog and vanishes like smoke.

Love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing compared with love in dreams.

The more conscious I was of goodness and of all that was 'sublime and beautiful,'the more deeply I sank into my mire and the more ready I was to sink in it altogether.

It is amazing what one ray of sunshine can do for a man!

Even those who have renounced Christianity and attack it, in their inmost being still follow the Christian ideal, for hitherto neither their subtlety nor the ardour of their hearts has been able to create a higher ideal of man and of virtue than the ideal given by Christ of old.

Man has such a predilection for systems and abstract deductions that he is ready to distort the truth intentionally he is ready to deny the evidence of his senses only to justify his logic.

I used to analyze myself down to the last thread, used to compare myself with others, recalled all the smallest glances, smiles and words of those to whom I’d tried to be frank, interpreted everything in a bad light, laughed viciously at my attempts ‘to be like the rest’ –and suddenly, in the midst of my laughing, I’d give way to sadness, fall into ludicrous despondency and once again start the whole process all over again – in short, I went round and round like a squirrel on a wheel.

He who desires to see the living God face-to-face should not seek him in the empty, firmament of his mind, but in human love.

There is only one thing that I dread: not to be worthy of my sufferings.

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.

We are citizens of eternity.

Or renounce life altogether! Accept fate obediently as it is, once and for all, and stifle everything in myself, renouncing any right to act, to live, to love.

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.

Every man has some reminiscences which he would not tell to everyone, but only to his friends.

One must first learn to live oneself before one blames others.

One man doesn't believe in god at all, while the other believes in him so thoroughly that he prays as he murders men!

They wanted to speak, but could not; tears stood in their eyes. They were both pale and thin; but those sick pale faces were bright with the dawn of a new future, of a full resurrection into a new life. They were renewed by love; the heart of each held infinite sources of life for the heart of the other.

Man is unhappy because he doesn't know he's happy. If anyone finds out he'll become happy at once.

To think too much is a disease.

A real gentleman, even if he loses everything he owns, must show no emotion. Money must be so far beneath a gentleman that it is hardly worth troubling about.

I wanted to fathom her secrets; I wanted her to come to me and say: "I love you," and if not that, if that was senseless insanity, then...well, what was there to care about? Did I know what I wanted? I was like one demented: all I wanted was to be near her, in the halo of her glory, in her radiance, always, for ever, all my life. I knew nothing more!

The world has proclaimed the reign of freedom, especially of late, but what do we see in this freedom of theirs? Nothing but slavery and self-destruction! For the world says: "You have desires and so satisfy them, for you have the same rights as the most rich and powerful. Don't be afraid of satisfying them and even multiply your desires."

Be not forgetful of prayer. Every time you pray, if your prayer is sincere, there will be new feeling and new meaning in it, which will give you fresh courage, and you will understand that prayer is an education.

But to fall in love does not mean to love. One can fall in love and still hate.

Coming at twenty to his father's house, which was a very sink of filthy debauchery, he, chaste and pure as he was, simply withdrew in silence when to look on was unbearable, but without the slightest sign of contempt or condemnation. His father, who had once been in a dependent position, and so was sensitive and ready to take offense, met him at first with distrust and sullenness.

We are born dead, and we are becoming more and more contented with our condition. We are acquiring the taste for it.

I bless the rising sun each day, and, as before, my heart sings to meet it, but now I love even more its setting, its long slanting rays & the soft tender gentle memories that come with them...’ -Father Zossima

Life is paradise, and we are all in paradise, but we refuse to see it.

Neither man nor nation can exist without a sublime idea.

... the more I learned, the more conscious did I become of the fact that I was ridiculous. So that for me my years of hard work at the university seem in the end to have existed for the sole purpose of demonstrating and proving to me, the more deeply engrossed I became in my studies, that I was an utterly absurd person

Nothing is easier than to denounce the evildoer; nothing is more difficult than to understand him.

It is man's unique privilege, among all other organisms. By pursuing falsehood you will arrive at the truth!

They have succeeded in accumulating a greater mass of objects, but the joy in the world has grown less.

For broad understanding and deep feeling, you need pain and suffering.