Quote by Fyodor Dostoevsky
“We can be enthused by—yes, that’s right, enthused—by the noblest of ideals, but only on condition that we don’t have to expend any effort, that we don’t have to make any sacrifices, and above all on condition that the ideals can be achieved free, gratis, that we needn’t pay anything. Paying is something we really resent; on the other hand, receiving, that’s really up our street, and that goes for everything. Let’s have every kind of blessing (nothing less will do, it must be every kind) and, whatever happens, let no one tell us what to do on any score, and then we too shall prove that we can be all sweetness and light.”
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Fyodor Mikhaylovich Dostoyevsky was a Russian writer, essayist and philosopher, perhaps most recognized today for his novels Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov.
Dostoyevsky's literary output explores human psychology in the troubled political, social and spiritual context of 19th-century Russian society. Considered by many as a founder or precursor of 20th-century existentialism, his Notes from Underground (1864), written in the embittered voice of the anonymous "underground man", was called by Walter Kaufmann the "best overture for existentialism ever written."
His tombstone reads "Verily, Verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit." from John 12:24, which is also the epigraph of his final novel, The Brothers Karamazov.