Inspirational Quotes by Fyodor Dostoevsky

“البشر يصبحون مجانين مسعورين، ولكنهم يعدون أنفسهم على ذكاء عظيم لم يزعمه البشر لأنفسهم في يوم من الأيام قط ؛ فهم يعتقدون بأنهم معصومين من الزلل مبرّؤون من الخطأ، في أحكامهم، في نتائجهم العلمية، في مبادئهم الأخلاقية والدينية. إن قرى ومدنًا وأممًا بكاملها قد سرت إليها هذه العدوى، وفقدت عقلها. أصبح أفرادها يعيشون في حالة جنون، لا يفهم بعضهم عن بعض شيئًا، لا يفهم أحد منهم عن أحد شيئًا ؛ كل واحد يؤمن بأنه الإنسان الوحيد الذي يمتلك الحقيقة، فإذا نظر إلى الآخرين تألم وبكى ولطم صدره وعقف يديه لوعة وحسرة. أصبح الناس لا يستطيعون أن يتفاهموا على ما ينبغي أن يكون شرًا وما ينبغي أن يكون خيرًا. أصبحوا لا يستطيعون لا أن يدينوا ولا أن يبرؤوا. أصبح البشر يقتل بعضهم بعضًا تحت سيطرة بغض لا معنى له وكره لا يُفهم. هم يجتمعون ليؤلفوا جيوشًا كبيرة، فما أن يدخلوا معركة حتى يندلع الشقاق في جميع الصفوف فتنحل الجيوش، ويأخذ الجنود يهجم بعضهم على بعض، فيَعُض بعضهم بعضًا، ويذبح بعضهم بعضًا، ويلتهم بعضهم بعضًا. في المدن يدق ناقوس الخطر طوال النهار، ويُستنفر الشعب. ولكن ما الذي يستنفره ؟ ولماذا يستنفره ؟ ذلك أمر لا يعرف أحد عنه شيئًا. الرعب يستبد بجميع الخلق. المهن العادية هجرها أصحابها، لأن كل واحد يعرض آراءه وإصلاحاته، وما من أحد يستطيع أن يتفق مع أحد. الزراعة أُهملت إهمالًا تامًا. هنا وهناك يجتمع أناس فيشكلون جماعات ويتهافتون على القيام بعمل مشترك، متعاهدين بأغلظ الأيمان على ألا يفترقوا قط، ولكنهم ما يلبثون أن يشرعوا في شيء لا يمت بأي صلة إلى ما عقدوا النية على القيام به، ثم ما يلبثون أن يأخذوا في التراشق بالتهم، ثم مايلبثون أن يقتتلوا فيذبح بعضهم بعضًا. وتشتعل الحرائق، وتظهم المجاعة. كل شيء يصيبه الدمار، وجميع الناس يهلكون شيئًا فشيئًآ.”

“Certainly we shall rise, certainly we shall see and gladly, joyfully tell one another all that has been,” Alyosha replied, half laughing, half in ecstasy.”

“He is guilty, but he will be acquitted, from motives of humanity, in accordance with the new ideas, the new sentiments that had come into fashion,”

“Bitter is the ascent of Golgotha...”

“It may be that you ought to thank God; why, for all you know he may be preserving you for something. Be of great heart and fear less.”

“The game's not worth the candle”

“I don't need you to tell me I'm not well, though I don't really know what's wrong with me; I think I'm five times healthier than you are.”

“Pain and suffering are always inevitable for a large intelligence and a deep heart. The really great men must, I think, have great sadness on earth,”

“The vast mass of mankind is mere material, and only exists in order by some great effort, by some mysterious process, by means of some crossing of races and stocks, to bring into the world at last perhaps one man out of a thousand with a spark of independence.”

“Let me be cursed, let me be base and vile, but let me also kiss the hem of that garment in which my God is clothed; let me be following the devil at the same time, but still I am also your son, Lord, and I love you, and I feel a joy without which the world cannot stand and be.”

“But how did I murder her? Is that how men do murders? Do men go to commit a murder as I went then? I will tell you some day how I went! Did I murder the old woman? I murdered myself, not her! I crushed myself once for all, for ever.… But it was the devil that killed that old woman, not I. Enough, enough, Sonia, enough! Let me be!”

“You have only to creep into a secluded corner or into a crocodile, to shut your eyes, and you immediately devise a perfect millennium for mankind.”

“Because wanton or venal lips had murmured the same words to him, he only half believed in the sincerity of those he was hearing now; to a large extent they should be disregarded, he believed, because such exaggerated language must surely mask commonplace feelings: as if the soul in its fullness did not sometimes overflow into the most barren metaphors, since no one can ever tell the precise measures of his own needs, of his own ideas, of his own pain, and human language is like a cracked kettle on which we beat out tunes for bears to dance to, when what we long to do is make music that will move the stars to pity.”

“Freedom! What is freedom for? Happiness is only in loving and wishing her wishes, thinking her thoughts, that is to say, not freedom at all — that’s happiness!” “But do I know her ideas, her wishes, her feelings?” some voice suddenly whispered to him. The smile died away from his face, and he grew thoughtful. And suddenly a strange feeling came upon him. There came over him a dread and doubt — doubt of everything.”

“Whether he was acting ill or well he did not know, and far from laying down the law about it, he now avoided talking or thinking about it. Thinking about it led him into doubts and prevented him from seeing what he should and should not do. But when he did not think, but just lived, he unceasingly felt in his soul the presence of an infallible judge deciding which of two actions was the better and which the worse; and as soon as he did what he should not have done he immediately felt this. In this way he lived, not knowing or seeing any possibility of knowing what he was or why he lived in the world.”

“How she listened, the first time, to the sonorous lamentations of romantic melancholia echoing out across heaven and earth! If her childhood had been spent in the dark back-room of a shop in some town, she would now perhaps have been kindled by the lyric surgings of nature which only normally reach us as through the interpretation of a writer.”

“Totuşi, acum, viaţa mea, întreaga mea viaţă, independent de ceea ce poate să mi se întâmple într-un moment anume, ea nu numai că nu e lipsită de înţeles ca altădată, dar are un sens vădit: al binelui pe care îl pot pune în ea.”

“He looked at her, and the fury expressed in her face alarmed and amazed him. He did not understand how his pity for her exasperated her. She saw in him sympathy for her, but not love.”

“You do not admit the conceivability at all?' he queried. 'But why not? We admit the existence of electricity, of which we know nothing. Why should there not be some new force, still unknown to us, which...' 'When electricity was discovered,' Levin interrupted hurriedly, 'it was only the phenomenon that was discovered, and it was unknown from what it proceeded and what were its effects, and ages passed before its applications were conceived. But the spiritualists have begun with tables writing for them, and spirits appearing to them, and have only later started saying that it is an unknown force.' Vronsky listened attentively to Levin, as he always did listen, obviously interested in his words. 'Yes, but the spiritualists say we don't know at present what this force is, but there is a force, and these are the conditions in which it acts. Let the scientific men find out what the force consists in. Not, I don't see why there should not be a new force, if it...' 'Why, because with electricity,' Levin interrupted again, 'every time you rub tar against wool, a recognized phenomenon is manifested, but in this case it does not happen every time, and so it follows it is not a natural phenomenon.”

“He had known at the bottom of his heart that he would see her here today. But to keep his thoughts free, he had tried to persuade himself that he did not know it. Now when he heard that she was here, he was suddenly conscious of such delight, and at the same time of such dread, that his breath failed him and he could not utter what he wanted to say.”