Inspirational Quotes by Fyodor Dostoevsky
“Nor is there any embarrassment in the fact that we're ridiculous, isn't that true? For it's actually so, we are ridiculous, light-minded, with bad habits, we're bored, we don't know how to look, how to understand, we're all like that, all, you, and I, and they”
“A change now began to take place in his work which gave him enormous pleasure. In the midst of his work moments came to him when he forgot what he was doing and began to feel light, and in those moments his swath came out as even and good as Titus's. But as soon as he remembered what he was doing and starting trying to do better, he at once felt how hard the work was and the swath came out badly.”
“I? Believe me, Zinaida Alexandrovna, that whatever you did, however much you make me suffer, I shall love you and adore you to the end of my days.”
“Rather than go preaching to people about what they ought to be, show them through your own example. Carry it out yourselves in practice, and everyone will follow you.”
“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.”
“Without moving, you walk through lands you imagine you can see, and your thoughts, weaving in and out of the story, delight in the details or follow the outlines of the adventures. You merge with the character; you think you're the one whose heart is beating so hard within the clothes he's wearing.”
“Above all, avoid lying, especially lying to yourself. Keep watching out for your lies, watch for them every hour, every minute. Also avoid disgust, both for others and yourself: whatever strikes you as disgusting within yourself is cleansed by the mere fact that you notice it. Avoid fear, too, although fear is really only a consequence of lies. Never be afraid of your petty selfishness when you try to achieve love and don’t be too alarmed if you act badly on occasion.”
“Don't you see, gentlemen? Reason is a fine thing, there's no question about it, but reason is only reason and only satisfies man's rational faculties, whereas desire is a manifestation of the whole of life, that is of the whole of human life, along with reason and all our head-scratching... not just the extraction of a square root.”
“لا يعيش أي إنسان دون هدف ما ودون جهد يبذل من أجل الوصول إلى هذا الهدف، ومتى غاب الهدف وزال الأمل، فإن القلق غالبًا ما يجعل من الإنسان وحشًا !”
“I was twenty-four, but even then I led the gloomy, disorganized, solitary existence of a recluse. I stayed away from people, avoided even speaking to them, and kept more and more to my hole.”
“قد يكون المرء صادقا كل الصدق في تولهه بحبه . . لا بحب "المحبوب" حقيقة، بل بحب حلمه به، بحب الوهم الذي قام في ذهنه عنه. ذلك لأن الحلم حلمه والوهم وهمه.”
“Where was it that I read of how a condemned man, just before he died, said, or thought, that if he had to live on some high crag, on a ledge so small that there was no more than room for his two feet, with all about him the abyss, the ocean, eternal night, eternal solitude, eternal storm, and there he must remain, on a hand's-breadth of ground, all his life, a thousand years, through all eternity-it would be better to live so, than die within the hour? Only to live, to live! No matter how-only to live!... How true! Lord, how true! How base men are!... And he is worse who decries them on that account!”
“O sebi ću vam reći da sam čedo svoga vijeka, čedo sumnji i nevjerice, da to ostajem i bit ću to (ja to znam) do smrti.”
topics: dostojevski
“You should not have gone murdering people with a hatchet. That is no occupation for a gentleman.”
“Here, perhaps, is the only man in the world who, were you to leave him alone and without money on the square of some unknown city with a population of a million, would not perish, would not die of cold and hunger, for he would immediately be fed and immediately be taken care of, and if no one else took care of him, he would immediately take care of himself, and it would cost him no effort, and no humiliation, and he would be no burden to those who took care of him, perhaps, on the contrary, they would consider it a pleasure.”
“He longed to revenge himself on everyone for his own unseemliness”
“There is no more ceaseless or tormenting care for man, as long as he remains free, than to find someone to bow down to as soon as possible.”
topics: the-grand-inquisitor
“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”
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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.