Inspirational Quotes by Fyodor Dostoevsky

“Ce coc în minte și ce nimicuri mă oripilează! se miră el cu un zâmbet straniu. Curios: totul e la îndemâna omului, dar, de poltron ce e, șansele îi trec pe sub nas... Iată o axiomă. Interesant, de ce anume le e frică oamenilor cel mai mult? De următorul pas, de cuvântul ce le stă pe limbă — orice îi scoate din bulionul lor îi bagă în sperieți... De altminteri, și eu prea bat câmpii. De aceea nici nu fac nimic, pentru că bat câmpii. De fapt, e valabil și de-a-ndoaselea: bat câmpii pentru că nu fac nimic. În ultima lună, m-am deprins să dondănesc, zăcând cât e ziulica de lungă într-un ungher și visând cai verzi pe pereți. De ce m-am pornit într-acolo? Sunt eu capabil de lucrul ăsta? E asta ceva serios? Nicidecum. Fantezii, autoamăgire, joc! Da, pesemne, totul nu e decât un joc!”

“- Я делаю… - нехотя и сурово проговорил Раскольников. - Что делаешь? - Работу… - Каку работу? - Думаю, - серьезно отвечал он, помолчав.”

“Everyone must look out for himself, and the best time is had by those who're best able to decieve themselves.”

“Nadie llega a una verdad sin haberse equivocado catorce veces, o ciento catorce, y esto es, acaso, un honor para el género humano. Pero no sabemos ser originales ni siquiera para equivocarnos. Un error original acaso valga más que una verdad insignificante.”

“God has had pity on me and is calling me to Himself. I know I am dying, but I feel joy and peace for the first time after so many years. There was heaven in my heart from the moment I had done what I had to do. Now I dare to love my children and to kiss them. Neither my wife nor the judges, nor anyone has believed it. My children will never believe it either. I see in that God’s mercy to them. I shall die, and my name will be without a stain for them. And now I feel God near, my heart rejoices as in Heaven… I have done my duty.”

“And it was not that he seemed to have forgotten or intentionally forgiven the affront, but simply that he did not regard it as an affront, and this completely conquered and captivated the boys.”

“Then she asked herself, "Isn’t he in love with someone? Who could it be? …Why, it’s me!" All the evidence immediately became clear to her, and her heart leapt.”

“He waked up late next day after a broken sleep. But his sleep had not refreshed him; he waked up bilious, irritable, ill-tempered, and looked with hatred at his room. It was a tiny cupboard of a room about six paces in length. It had a poverty-stricken appearance with its dusty yellow paper peeling off the walls, and it was so low-pitched that a man of more than average height was ill at ease in it and felt every moment that he would knock his head against the ceiling. The furniture was in keeping with the room: there were three old chairs, rather rickety; a painted table in the corner on which lay a few manuscripts and books; the dust that lay thick upon them showed that they had been long untouched. A big clumsy sofa occupied almost the whole of one wall and half the floor space of the room; it was once covered with chintz, but was now in rags and served Raskolnikov as a bed. Often he went to sleep on it, as he was, without undressing, without sheets, wrapped in his old student's overcoat, with his head on one little pillow, under which he heaped up all the linen he had, clean and dirty, by way of a bolster. A little table stood in front of the sofa.”

“And indeed, human beings in general are fond, even inordinately fond, of being trampled on, have you noticed that? But of women it's especially true. One might even say they that can't get along without it.”

“There is no such rôle in a community. The community is established that there should be no such rôles. In a community, such a rôle is essentially transformed and what is stupid here is sensible there, what, under present conditions, is unnatural becomes perfectly natural in the community. It all depends on the environment. It’s all the environment and man himself is nothing.”

“But why, if you are so clever, do you lie here like a sack and have nothing to show for it? One time you used to go out, you say, to teach children. But why is it you do nothing now?" "I am doing..." Raskolnikov began sullenly and reluctantly. "What are you doing?" "Work..." "What sort of work?" "I am thinking," he answered seriously after a pause.”

“You’re still lying,’ he said slowly and feebly, his lips twisted into a sickly smile. ‘Once again you’re trying to prove to me that you know my game inside out, that you know all my replies in advance.’ He himself almost knew that he was no longer weighing his words as he should. ‘You’re trying to frighten me … or else you’re just laughing at me …”

“No, sir! If, for example, in earlier times it was said to me: “Love your neighbour” and I acted on it, what was the result?’ continued Peter Petrovich, with perhaps excessive haste. ‘The result was that I divided my cloak with my neighbour and we were both left half-naked, for according to the Russian proverb: “If you run after two hares, you will catch neither.” Science, however, says: love yourself first of all, for everything in the world is based on personal interest. If you love yourself alone, you will conduct your affairs properly, and your cloak will remain whole. Economic truth adds that the more private enterprises are established and the more, so to say, whole cloaks there are in a society, the firmer will be its foundations and the more will be undertaken for the common good. That is to say, that by the very act of devoting my gains solely and exclusively to myself, I am at the same time benefiting the whole community, and ensuring that my neighbour receives something better than half a torn cloak, and that not by private, isolated bounty, but as a consequence of the general economic advancement. The idea is simple, but, unfortunately, has been too long in finding acceptance, obscured as it is by vaporous ideals and misguided enthusiasms; a certain keenness of intellect, it would seem, is necessary to realize …”

“Sólo podía sentir. Al razonamiento se había impuesto la vida.”

“Чтобы беспристрастно судить о некоторых людях, нужно заранее отказаться от иных предвзятых взглядов и от обыденной привычки к обыкновенно окружающим нас людям и предметам.”

“Hate not the atheists, the teachers of evil, the materialists- and I mean not only the good ones- for there are many good ones among them, especially in our day- hate not even the wicked ones.”

“But the Church, like a mother, tender and loving, withholds from active punishment, for even without her punishment, the wrongdoer is already too painfully punished by the state court, and at least someone should pity him.”

“If the realist once believes, then he is bound by his very realism to admit the miraculous also. The Apostle Thomas said that he would not believe till he saw, but when he did see he said, “My Lord and my God!” Was it the miracle forced him to believe? Most likely not, but he believed solely because he desired to believe and possibly he fully believed in his secret heart even when he said, “I do not believe till I see.”

“And all will be happy, all the millions of creatures except the hundred thousand who rule over them. For only we, we who guard the mystery, shall be unhappy. There will be thousands of millions of happy babes, and a hundred thousand sufferers who have taken upon themselves the curse of the knowledge of good and evil.”

“have come to us perhaps only to see whether here he could sacrifice all or only “two roubles,” and in the monastery he met this elder. I must”