Inspirational Quotes by Fyodor Dostoevsky
“The marvel is that such an idea, the idea of the necessity of God, could enter the head of such a savage beast as man. So holy it is, so touching, so wise and so great a credit is to man.”
“Me aterra pensar en el futuro, porque el futuro es otra vez la soledad, esta vida rutinaria e inútil”
“¿Olvidaste que el hombre prefiere la paz e incluso la muerte a la libertad para discernir el bien y el mal? No hay nada más seductor para el hombre que el libre albedrío, pero también nada más doloroso. En vez de principios sólidos que tranquilizaran para siempre la conciencia humana, ofreciste nociones vagas, extrañas, enigmáticas, algo que superaba las posibilidades de los hombres. Procediste, pues, como si no quisieras a los seres humanos, tú que viniste a dar la vida por ellos. Aumentaste la libertad humana en vez de confiscarla, y así impusiste para siempre a los espíritus el terror de esta libertad. Deseabas que se te amara libremente, que los hombres te siguieran por su propia voluntad, fascinados. En vez de someterse a las duras leyes de la antigüedad, el hombre tendría desde entonces que discernir libremente entre el bien y el mal, no teniendo más guía que la de tu imagen, y no previste que al fin rechazaría, e incluso pondría en duda, tu imagen y tu verdad, abrumado por la tremenda carga de la libertad de escoger.”
“You must know that there is nothing higher and stronger and more wholesome and good for life in the future than some good memory, especially a memory of childhood, of home.”
“Russia. I speak not only to fathers here, but to all fathers I cry out: ‘Fathers, provoke not your children!’ Let us first fulfill Christ’s commandment ourselves, and only then let us expect the same of our children.”
“Yes, man is broad, too broad, indeed. I'd have him narrower”
“She fell on her knees before him as though in a sudden frenzy. “I’ve been waiting all my life for someone like you, I knew that someone like you would come and forgive me. I believed that, nasty as I am, someone would really love me, not only with a shameful love!”
“Let me be sinful before everyone, but so that everyone will forgive me, and that is paradise. Am I not in paradise now?”
“Besides, nothing was worth the trouble of seeking it; everything was a lie. Every smile hid a yawn of boredom, every joy a curse, all pleasure satiety, and the sweetest kisses left upon your lips only the unattainable desire for a greater delight.”
“Raskolnikov realised in that moment that it was no longer possible for him to talk to anyone about anything, ever.”
“ذلك أن العلم يا بني ليس دائما ميزة. فمن الناس من يتباهى وينقاد للرغبة في إدهاش العالم، فلو كنتُ عالما فقد أرغب في ذلك أكثر من سائر البشر. أما وأنني جاهل لا أعرف شيئا فكيف يمكنني أن أتباهى؟”
“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.”
“Sometimes she put that question to her husband, and, as usual, she asked it hysterically, threateningly, expecting an immediate reply.”
“He racked his brains for a way of making his declaration. Torn all the while between fear of offending and shame at his own faint-heartedness, he wept tears of dejection and desire. Then he made forceful resolutions. He wrote letters, and tore them up; he gave himself a time limit, then extended it. Often he started out with a determination to dare all; but his decisiveness quickly deserted him in Emma's presence [...] Emma, for her part, never questioned herself to find out whether she was in love with him. Love, she believed, must come suddenly, with thunder and lightning, a hurricane from on high that swoops down into your life and turns it topsy-turvy, snatches away your will-power like a leaf, hurls your heart and soul into the abyss. She did not know how on the terrace of a house the rain collects in pools when the gutters are choked; and she would have continued to feel quite safe had she not suddenly discovered a crack in the wall.”
“Now he found out a new thing—namely, that to promise not to do a thing is the surest way in the world to make a body want to go and do that very thing.”
“What exasperated her was that Charles seemed to have no notion of her torment. His conviction that he was making her happy struck her as impudent imbecility, his uxorious complacency as ingratitude.”
“Meanwhile, genuine equality says: "What do I care if you are more talented than I, more clever, more handsome? I'm glad for it, rather, because I love you. But though I may be less important to you, I respect myself as a person; and you know this and respect me yourself, and I am happy with your respect. If you, through your abilities, can bring me and everyone else a hundredfold more benefit than I can bring you, then I bless you for it; I marvel at you and thank you, and in no way do I hold my awe for you as something shameful; on the contrary, I am happy that I am grateful to you, and if I work for you and for all in so far as my feeble abilities allow, then it is certainly not to try to balance my account with you, but because I love you all.”
“Within two minutes, or even less, he had forgotten all his troubles. Not because his troubles were one whitless heavy and bitter to him than a man's are to a man, but because a new and powerful interest bore them down and drove them out of his mind for the time-just as a man's misfortunes are forgotten in the excitement of new enterprises. This new interest was a valued novelty in whistling...He felt much as an astronomer feels who has discovered a new planet- no doubt, as far as strong, deep, unalloyed pleasure is concerned, the advantage was with the boy, not the astronomer.”
“People talk sometimes of 'bestial' cruelty, but that's a great injustice and insult to the beast; a beast can never be so cruel as a man, so artistically, so artfully cruel.”
topics: cruelty
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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.