Inspirational Quotes by Fyodor Dostoevsky

“As a general rule, people, even the wicked, are much more naive and simplehearted than we suppose. And we ourselves are, too.”

“What right did this Nature have to bring me into the world as a result of some eternal law of hers? I was created with consciousness, and I was conscious of this Nature: what right did she have to produce me, a conscious being, without my willing it?...”

“So it is that when we are unhappy we sense more acutely the unhappiness of others; rather than dispersing, the emotion becomes focused...”

“Stupidity is brief and guileless, while wit equivocates and hides. Wit is a scoundrel, while stupidity is honest and sincere.”

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

“Months and years!' he would exclaim. 'Why recon the days? One day is enough for a man to know all happiness.”

“este sistema ya milenario de regeneración moral, mediante el cual pasa el hombre, al perfeccionarse, de la esclavitud a la libertad, puede ser un arma de dos filos, ya que, en vez de la humildad y el dominio de uno mismo, puede fomentar un orgullo satánico y hacer del hombre un esclavo, no un ser libre.”

“There is no sin, and there can be no sin on all the earth, which the Lord will not forgive to the truly repentant!”

“و أمل أن لا ينقلب ميلهـ إلى الأفكار الشعبيّة، كما يحث في كثير من الأحيان، إلى صوفيّة ضبابيّة وغيبيّة جاهلة في مجال الأخلاق، والى تعصب قوي أعمى على صعيد السياسة..”

“Κυρίως μην ψεύδεσθε στον εαυτό σας. Αυτός που λέει ψέματα στον εαυτό του φτάνει στο τέλος να μην ξεχωρίζει την αλήθεια ούτε μέσα ούτε γύρω του. Έτσι χάνει τον αυτοσεβασμό του αλλά και τον σεβασμό των άλλων. Και καθώς δεν σέβεται πλέον κανένα, σταματά να αγαπά..”

“Voltaire’s Si Dieu n’existait pas , il faudrait l’inventer (“If God did not exist, he would have to be invented”).”

“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.”

“I tell Thee that man is tormented by no greater anxiety than to find some one quickly to whom he can hand over that gift of freedom with which the ill-fated creature is born.”

“ولنكن جميعاً خجولين على ذكاء وحلاوة مثل كارتاشوف..”

“So long as man remains free he strives for nothing so incessantly and so painfully as to find some one to worship.”

“وإذا هاجتِ الأحزان في قلب امرئٍ وتألّبت المحن، أضحى أحيانًا خسيسًا لا يرى إلا السيئات والنقائص، أما الفضائل فتصبح كالقذى في عينه كلما لمسها في غيره.”

“For, having begun to build their Tower of Babel without us, they will end in anthropophagy. And it is then that the beast will come crawling to us and lick our feet and spatter them with tears of blood from its eyes. And we shall sit upon the beast and raise the cup, and on it will be written: "Mystery!”

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

“No, if you want to punish him terribly, fearfully, with the most horrible punishment imaginable, but so as to save and restore his soul forever—then overwhelm him with your mercy!”

“the Lord vanquished the devil in my heart.”