Inspirational Quotes by Fyodor Dostoevsky

“The side whiskers indeed were quite handsome. But he stroked them so very zealously that looking at him, one might very well think that first just the side whiskers had been brought into the world, and then later the gentleman was attached to them in order to stroke them.”

“Then I used to lock myself in my room, or go to the end of the garden, climb on to the ruin of a high stone greenhouse and, dangling my legs from the wall which looked out on the road, would sit for hours, staring and staring, seeing nothing. Near me, over the dusty nettles, white butterflies fluttered lazily. A pert little sparrow would fly down on to a half-broken red brick nearby, and would irritate me with its chirping, ceaselessly turning its whole body with its outspread tail; the crows, still wary, occasionally cawed, sitting high, high on the bare top of a birch -- while the sun and wind played gently in its spreading branches; the bells of the Donskoy monastery would sometimes float across -- tranquil and sad -- and I would sit and gaze and listen, and would be filled with a nameless sensation which had everything in it; sorrow and joy, a premonition of the future, and desire, and fear of life. At the time, I understood none of this, and could not have given a name to any of the feelings which seethed within me; or else I would have called it all by one name – the name of Zinaida.”

“Talk nonsense to me, by all means, but do it with your own brain, and I shall love you for it. To talk nonsense in one's own way is almost better than to talk a truth that is someone else's; in the first instance you behave like a human being, while in the second you are merely being a parrot!”

“he could be suspected of knowing anything about the murder, but still he could not be comfortable in the midst of this gossip. It kept him in a cold”

“By virtue of her character, Kitty always assumed the most beautiful things of people, especially those she did not know. And now, making guesses about who was who, what relations they were in, and what sort of people they were, Kitty imagined to herself the most beautiful characters and found confirmation in her observations.”

“Отцы и учители, мыслю: "что есть ад?" Рассуждаю так: "Страдание о том, что нельзя уже более любить”

“Oh, God and all the rest of it.” “What, don’t you believe in God?” “Oh, I’ve nothing against God. Of course, God is only a hypothesis, but . . . I admit that He is needed . . . for the order of the universe and all that . . . and that if there were no God He would have to be invented,” added Kolya, beginning to blush.”

“[The Devil] I sincerely love people--oh, so much of what has been said about me is slander!”

“Oh, nothing. God created light on the first day, and the sun, moon, and stars on the fourth day. Where did the light come from on the first day?”

“We are full of hatred, my girl, you and I! We are both full of hatred! As though we could forgive on another! Save him, and I’ll worship you all my life.”

“With love everything is bought, everything is saved. If even I, a sinful man, just like you, was moved to tenderness and felt pity for you, how much more will God be. Love is such a priceless treasure that you can buy the whole world with it, and redeem not only your own but other people's sins.”

“Oh! in his rapture he was weeping even over those stars, which were shining to him from the abyss of space, and "he was not ashamed of that ecstasy." There seemed to be threads from all those innumerable worlds of God, linking his soul to them, and it was trembling all over "in contact with other worlds." He longed to forgive everyone and for everything, and to beg forgiveness. Oh, not for himself, but for all men, for all and for everything. "And others are praying for me too," echoed again in his soul. But with every instant he felt clearly and, as it were, tangibly, that something firm and unshakable as that vault of heaven had entered into his soul. It was as though some idea had seized the sovereignty of his mind -- and it was for all his life and for ever and ever. He had fallen on the earth a weak boy, but he rose up a resolute champion, and he knew and felt it suddenly at the very moment of his ecstasy. And never, never, his life long, could Alyosha forget that minute.”

“The more I love humanity in general, the less I love man in particular. In”

“But what is there to wonder at, what is there so peculiarly horrifying in it for us? We are so accustomed to such crimes! That’s what’s so horrible, that such dark deeds have ceased to horrify us. What ought to horrify us is that we are so accustomed to it, and not this or that isolated crime. What are the causes of our indifference, our lukewarm attitude to such deeds, to such signs of the times, ominous of an unenviable future? Is it our cynicism, is it the premature exhaustion of intellect and imagination in a society that is sinking into decay, in spite of its youth? Is it that our moral principles are shattered to their foundations, or is it, perhaps, a complete lack of such principles among us?”

“-Je pense qu'on doit aimer la vie par-dessus tout. -Aimer la vie, plutôt que le sens de la vie? -Certainement. L'aimer avant de raisonner, sans logique, comme tu dis; alors seulement on en comprendra le sens.”

“If he was a wise philosopher, like the writer of this book, he would have comprehended that work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do, and that play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do.”

“tôi vẫn ngồi, vẫn nhìn, vẫn nghe - và lòng tràn ngập một cảm xúc không biết nên gọi là gì, nhưng trong đó có tất cả: niềm vui, nỗi buồn, linh cảm về tương lai, những khát vọng và sự lo âu về cuộc đời. Nhưng lúc ấy tôi còn chưa hiểu gì và tôi cũng không biết gọi tên tất cả những cảm xúc bề bộn trong lòng tôi là gì, hay cũng chỉ biết gọi tất cả những cái đó bằng một cái tên - Zinaitđa”

“Therefore you, too, mother, know that your infant, too, surely now stands before the throne of the Lord, rejoicing and being glad, and praying to God for you. Weep, then, but also rejoice.”

“As for my own personal opinion. I find it somehow unseemly to love only well-being. Whether it's a good thing or a bad thing, smashing things is also sometimes very pleasant. I am not standing up for suffering, or for well-being either. I am standing up for my own caprices and for having them guaranteed when necessary.”

“He thought of nothing, desired nothing, except not to lag behind and to do the best job he could.”