Inspirational Quotes by Fyodor Dostoevsky

“I and all men have only one firm, incontestable, clear knowledge, and that knowledge cannot be explained by the reason--it is outside it, and has no causes and can have no effects. "If goodness has causes, it is not goodness; if it has effects, a reward, it is not goodness either. So goodness is outside the chain of cause and effect.”

“لأن الإشتراكية ليست نظرة الى مسألة الطبقة العاملة فحسب, او ما يطلق عليه اسم "الدولة الرابعة" انما هي قبل كل شيئ نظرة إلحادية و تجسيد حديث للكفر بالدين. انها قصة برج بابل القديمة التي أراد البشر ان يشيدوه بلا إله كما يحاولون ذلك الآن، لا ليرتفعوا من الارض الى السماوات، بل لينزلوا السماء الى الارض”

“But the more intensely he thought, the clearer it became to him that it was indubitably so, that in reality, looking upon life, he had forgotten one little fact-that death will come, and all ends; that nothing was even worth beginning, and that there was no helping it anyway. Yes it was awful, but it was so.”

“There is a great and unresolved thought in him. He's one of those who don't need millions, but need to resolve their thought.”

“دروغ را به سبك خود گفتن، بهتر از حقيقتي است به تقليد ديگري”

“أخي ! ..أخي ! .صديقي ! ..مذل هو الإنسان حتى اليوم ! ، رهيب هو مصير الإنسان ! شديدة هي آلام الإنسان ! لا تحسبن لأن لي رتبة ضابط أنني امرؤ فظ غليظ القلب لا يعنيه إلا أن يشرب الكونياك وأن يتلذذ بالنساء ! إنني في الواقع لا أفكر إلا في مصير البشر الذي يدعو إلى الشفقة والعطف والرثاء ، ذلك هو اهتمامي الوحيد تقريبا وما أنا بكاذب عليك البتة ، ألا فلتشهد السماء أني لا أكذب ولا أتباهي في هذه اللحظة ، إن المصير الفاجع الذي كتب على البشر يعذبني تعذيبا شديدا لأنني أنا نفسي واحد من هؤلاء الأشقياء البؤساء”

“Consciousness is man's greatest misfortune, still I know that man loves it and will not exchange it for any satisfactions.”

“sorrow rushed into her soul, moaning softly like the winter wind in abandoned manor houses.”

“She thought, sometimes, that, after all, this was the happiest time of her life—the honeymoon, as people called it. To taste the full sweetness of it, it would have been necessary doubtless to fly to those lands with sonorous names where the days after marriage are full of laziness most suave. In post chaises behind blue silken curtains to ride slowly up steep road, listening to the song of the postilion re-echoed by the mountains, along with the bells of goats and the muffled sound of a waterfall; at sunset on the shores of gulfs to breathe in the perfume of lemon trees; then in the evening on the villa-terraces above, hand in hand to look at the stars, making plans for the future. It seemed to her that certain places on earth must bring happiness, as a plant peculiar to the soil, and that cannot thrive elsewhere. Why could not she lean over balconies in Swiss chalets, or enshrine her melancholy in a Scotch cottage, with a husband dressed in a black velvet coat with long tails, and thin shoes, a pointed hat and frills? Perhaps she would have liked to confide all these things to someone. But how tell an undefinable uneasiness, variable as the clouds, unstable as the winds? Words failed her—the opportunity, the courage.”

“N’importe ! elle n’était pas heureuse, ne l’avait jamais été. D’où venait donc cette insuffisance de la vie, cette pourriture instantanée des choses où elle s’appuyait ?… Mais, s’il y avait quelque part un être fort et beau, une nature valeureuse, pleine à la fois d’exaltation et de raffinements, un coeur de poète sous une forme d’ange, lyre aux cordes d’airain, sonnant vers le ciel des épithalames élégiaques, pourquoi, par hasard, ne le trouveraitelle pas ? Oh ! quelle impossibilité ! Rien, d’ailleurs, ne valait la peine d’une recherche ; tout mentait ! Chaque sourire cachait un bâillement d’ennui, chaque joie une malédiction, tout plaisir son dégoût, et les meilleurs baisers ne vous laissaient sur la lèvre qu’une irréalisable envie d’une volupté plus haute.”

“Perhaps you will learn from this that books are sacred to free men for very good reasons, and that wars have been fought against nations which hate books and burn them.”

“…have you noticed, Rodion Romanovitch, that in our Petersburg circles, if two clever men meet who are not intimate, but respect each other, like you and me, it takes them half an hour before they can find a subject for conversation – they are dumb, they sit opposite each other and feel awkward? Everyone has subjects of conversation, ladies for instance…people in high society always have their subjects of conversation, c’est de rigueur; but people of the middle sort like us, thinking people that is, are always tongue-tied and awkward. What is the reason of it? Whether it is the lack of public interest, or whether it is we are so honest we don’t want to deceive one another, I don’t know. What do you think?”

“Quien para otro cava una zanja en ella cae”

“I am besieged by such strange thoughts, such dark sensations, such obscure questions, which still crowd my mind - and somehow I have neither the strength nor the desire to resolve them. It is not for me to resolve all this!”

“No prize , however great can justify an ounce of self deception or a small departure of the ugly facts. ( Notes from Underground)”

“Without a firm idea of himself and the purpose of his life, man cannot live, and would sooner destroy himself than remain on earth, even if he was surrounded by bread.”

“There is a place they call La Pature, on the top of the hill, on the edge of the forest. Sometimes, on Sundays, I go and stay there with a book, watching the sunset.”

“What they have is science, and in science only that which is subject to the senses. The spiritual world, on the other hand, the loftier half of the man's being, is rejected altogether, cast out with a certain triumph, hatred even. The world has proclaimed freedom of theirs: nothing but servitude and suicide! For the world says: 'You have needs, so satisfy them, for you have the same rights as the wealthiest and most highly placed of men. Do not be afraid to satisfy them, but even multiply them' -- that is the present-day teaching of the world. In that, too, they see freedom. And what is the result of this right to the multiplication of needs? Among the rich and spiritual suicide, and among the poor -- envy and murder, for while they have been given rights, they have not yet been afforded the means with which to satisfy their needs.”

“بابا حين يهيلون على قبري التراب، فانثر فوقه فتات خبز ففتهافت عليه العصافير، فأسمع صوتها، فلا أشعر بأنني وحيد”

“Now he experienced a feeling akin to that of a man whom while calmly crossing a bridge over a precipice, should suddenly discover that the bridge is broken, and that there is a chasm below. That chasm was life itself, the bridge that artificial life in which Aleksey Aleksandrovich had lived.”