Inspirational Quotes by Fyodor Dostoevsky
“Look how our young people commit suicide, without asking themselves Hamlet’s question what there is beyond, without a sign of such a question, as though all that relates to the soul and to what awaits us beyond the grave had long been erased in their minds and buried under the sands.”
“You have a wholesome character, and you want all of life to made up of wholesome phenomena, but that doesn't happen... All the variety, all the charm, all the beauty of life are made up of light and shade.”
“There’s the Holy Ghost and there’s the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit can appear as other birds- sometimes as a swallow, sometimes a goldfinch and sometimes as a blue-tit.” “How do you know him from an ordinary tit?” “He speaks.” “How does he speak, in what language?” “Human language.” “And what does he tell you?” “Why, to-day he told me that a fool would visit me and would ask me unseemly questions. You”
“E cu putinţă oare ca omul să se simtă cu adevărat nefericit? Dar ce importanţă au necazurile şi nenorocirile mele dacă sunt în stare să fiu fericit? Ştiţi, nu înţeleg cum poate cineva trece pe lângă un copac şi să nu fie fericit că-l vede? Să stea de vorbă cu un om şi să nu fie fericit că-l iubeşte?… Dar există atâtea lucruri minunate pe care le întâlneşti la fiecare pas şi pe care până şi omul cel mai decăzut le găseşte minunate!”
topics: inspirational
“Now we are either horrified or pretend to be horrified, though we really gloat over the spectacle, and love strong and eccentric sensations which tickle our cynical, pampered idleness. Or, like little children, we brush the dreadful ghosts away and hide our heads in the pillow so as to return to our sports and merriment as soon as they have vanished. But we must one day begin life in sober earnest, we must look at ourselves as a society; it’s time we tried to grasp something of our social position, or at least to make a beginning in that direction.”
“shameful!' What is shameful? That 'creature,' that 'woman of loose behaviour' is perhaps holier than you are yourselves, you monks who are seeking salvation! She fell perhaps in her youth, ruined by her environment. But she loved much, and Christ himself forgave the woman 'who loved much.'" "It was not for such love Christ forgave her," broke impatiently from the gentle Father Iosif. "Yes, it was for such, monks, it was! You save your souls here, eating cabbage, and think you are the righteous. You eat a gudgeon a day, and you think you bribe God with gudgeon.”
“Ivan Fyodorovich had long been feeling an intense hatred for him, before he even thought about him, and suddenly he became aware of him. He at once felt an irresistible desire to bring his fist down on the little peasant. Just at that moment they came abreast of each other, and the little peasant, staggering badly, suddenly lurched full force into Ivan. The latter furiously shoved him away. The little peasant flew back and crashed like a log against the frozen ground, let out just one painful groan: “O-oh!” and was still. Ivan stepped up to him. He lay flat on his back, quite motionless, unconscious. “He’ll freeze!” Ivan thought, and strode off again to Smerdyakov.”
“I have a proud character that cannot bear contempt.”
“Aus dem dämmrigen Dunkel der Nacht trat eine feste, schwarze Masse von Gebäuden hervor, die sich über einer gewaltigen Fläche ausbreiteten. Das Dorf Mokroje zählte zweitausend Seelen; um diese Stunde schlief jedoch schon alles, nur hier und da schimmerten spärliche Lichter durch die Dunkelheit.”
topics: atmospheric
“People have grown accustomed to having everything ready-made for them, they're used to depending on the guidance of others, having everything chewed up for them first. Well, and when the great hour finally struck, they all showed themselves at face value...”
“არ მინდა კაცობრიობის ის ბედნიერი მომავალი, რომლის საძირკველშიც ბავშვის ერთი ცრემლი მაინც ჩავარდება”
topics: დოსტოევსკი
“He went up to his room like a man who has been condemned to death. His mind was completely empty, and he was quite incapable of filling it with anything; but with his whole being he suddenly felt that he no longer possessed any freedom of thought or of will, and that everything had suddenly been decided once and for all.”
“for the idea was by no means so stupid as it seems now that it has failed.... (Everything seems stupid when it fails.)”
“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.”
“To transform the world, to recreate it afresh, men must turn into another path psychologically. Until you have become really, in actual fact, a brother to every one, brotherhood will not come to pass.”
“In ancient days, men looked at stars and saw their heroes in the constellations. In modern times, we do much the same, but our heroes are epic men of flesh and blood.”
“Y lo más terrible es que tengo la culpa de todo y sin embargo no soy culpable. En eso consiste mi tragedia”
“De todas las borrascas que caen sobre el amor, ninguna lo enfría y lo desarraiga tanto como las peticiones de dinero.”
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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.