Inspirational Quotes by Fyodor Dostoevsky
“It is so sweet, amid all the disenchantments of life, to be able to dwell in thought upon noble characters, pure affections, and pictures of happiness.”
“Whoever steps on the lowest step will surely step on the highest.”
“To be a human being among people and to remain one forever, no matter in what circumstances, not to grow despondent and not to lose heart — that’s what life is all about, that’s its task.”
topics: hope
“I owe them nothing now, and owe no one anything for ever. They are wicked and I will be wicked. They are cruel and I will be cruel.”
“el socialismo no es sólo una doctrina obrera, sino que representa el ateísmo en su forma contemporánea;”
“A man who lies to himself is often the first to take offense. It sometimes feels very good to take offense, doesn’t it? And surely he knows that no one has offended him, and that he himself has invented the offense and told lies just for the beauty of it, that he has exaggerated for the sake of effect, that he has picked on a word and made a mountain out of a pea—he knows all of that, and still he is the first to take offense, he likes feeling offended, it gives him great pleasure, and thus he reaches the point of real hostility”
“As a general rule, people, even the wicked, are much more naive and simple-hearted than we suppose. And we ourselves are, too.”
“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.”
“Well, go 'long and play; but mind you get back some time in a week, or I'll tan you.”
“Beauty is a terrible and awful thing! It is terrible because it has not been fathomed and will never be fathomed…”
“But the church, like a tender, loving mother holds aloof from active punishment herself, as the sinner is too severely punished already by the civil law, and there must be at least someone to have pity on him. The church holds aloof, above all, because its judgment alone contains the truth...”
“There is a good deal of posturing here, of romantic frenzy, of wild Karamazovian unrestraint and sentimentality—yes, and also something else, gentlemen of the jury, something that cries out in the soul, that throbs incessantly in his mind, and poisons his heart unto death; this something is conscience, gentlemen of the jury, the judgment, the terrible pangs of conscience!”
“The odd superstitions touched upon were all prevalent among children and slaves in the West at the period of this story—that is to say, thirty or forty years ago.”
“The stupider one is, the closer one is to reality. The stupider one is, the clearer one is. Stupidity is brief and artless, while intelligence wriggles and hides itself. Intelligence is a knave, but stupidity is honest and straight forward.”
“[The Devil] Mephistopheles, when he comes to Faust, testifies of himself that he desires evil, yet does only good. Well, let him do as he likes, it's quite the opposite with me. I am perhaps the only man in all of nature who loves the truth and sincerely desires good.”
“Well, let her—she should see that he could be as indifferent as some other people.”
“...in spite of his solitude, or in consequence of his solitude, his life was exceedingly full.”
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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.