Inspirational Quotes by Fyodor Dostoevsky
“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.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky ,
from Crime and Punishment
“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!”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky ,
from Crime and Punishment
“The triumphant sense of security, of deliverance from overwhelming danger, that was what filled his whole soul that moment without thought for the future, without analysis, without suppositions or surmises, without doubts and without questioning. It was an instant of full, direct, purely instinctive joy.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky ,
from Crime and Punishment
“If you chase several hares at once, you won't overtake any one of them.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky ,
from Crime and Punishment
topics: wisdom
“When reason fails, the devil helps!" he thought with a strange grin. This chance raised his spirits extraordinarily.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky ,
from Crime and Punishment
“She showed that alertness, that swiftness of reflection comes out in men before a battle, in conflict, in the dangerous and decisive moments of life—those moments when a man shows once and for all his value, and that all his past has not been wasted but has been a preparation for these moments.”
“If you chase several hares at once, you won't undertake any one of them.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky ,
from Crime and Punishment
topics: wisdom
“So a man will sometimes go through half an hour of mortal terror with a brigand, yet when the knife is at his throat at last, he feels no fear. Raskolnikov”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky ,
from Crime And Punishment
“Well, you may abuse me, be angry with me if you like," Porfiry Petrovitch began again, "but I can't resist. Allow me one little question (I know I am troubling you). There is just one little notion I want to express, simply that I may not forget it.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky ,
from Crime and Punishment
“He was one of the numerous and varied legion of dullards, of half-animate abortions, conceited, half-educated coxcombs, who attach themselves to the idea most in fashion only to vulgarise it and who caricature every cause they serve, however sincerely.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky ,
from Crime and Punishment
“Wozu sollte er leben? Was sich vornehmen? Wonach streben? Sollte er leben, nur um zu existieren?”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky ,
from Crime and Punishment
“La mentira es el único privilegio del hombre sobre todos los demás animales.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky ,
from Crime and Punishment
“All the cruellest words a coarse man could say, he said to her in her imagination, and she could not forgive him for them, as if he had actually said them to her.”
“I might actually have faced crucifixion if it had been suddenly necessary; and yet I am incapable of living in the same room with any one for two days together, as I know by experience.”
topics: love-of-neighbor
“What can become of him if he is in such bondage to the habit of satisfying the innumerable desires he has created for himself? He is isolated, and what concern has he with the rest of humanity? They have succeeded in accumulating a greater mass of objects, but the joy in the world has grown less.”
“- You take evil for good. It's a passing crisis. It's the result of your illness, perhaps. - You do despise me! It's simply that I don't want to do good, I want to do evil, and it has nothing to do with illness. - Why do evil? - So that everything will be destroyed. Oh, how nice it would be if everything were destroyed! You know, Alyosha, I sometimes think of doing a lot of harm. I would do it for a long while secretly and then suddenly everyone would find out. Everyone will stand around and point their fingers at me and I will look at them all. That would be awfully nice.”
“The two girls used to meet several times a day, and every time they met, Kitty's eyes said: "Who are you? What are you? Are you really the exquisite creature I imagine you to be? But for goodness' sake don't suppose," her eyes added, "that I would force my acquaintance on you, I simply admire you and like you." "I like you too, and you're very, very sweet. And I should like you better still, if I had time," answered the eyes of the unknown girl.”
“Profound silence; silence so deep that even their breathings were conspicuous in the hush.”
“كي تجعل احداً يرغب في شيء ما , فكل ما عليك فعله هو ان تجعل هذا الشئ صعب المنال”
“Deliberately she shrouded the light in her eyes, but it shone against her will in the faintly perceptible smile.”
Group of Brands
© 2026 Bibleportal.com All rights reserved.
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.