Inspirational Quotes by Fyodor Dostoevsky

“...страдание-то и есть жизнь. Без страдания какое было бы в ней удовольствие: всё обратилось бы в один бесконечный молебен: оно свято, но скучновато.”

“Only a little tiny seed is needed—drop it into the heart of the peasant and it won’t die, it will live in his soul all his life, it will be hidden in the midst of his darkness and sin, like a bright spot, like a great reminder. And there’s no need of much teaching or explanation, he will understand it all simply.”

“The old man himself points out to him that he has no right to add anything to what has already been said once. That, if you like, is the most basic feature of Roman Catholicism, in my opinion at least: ‘Everything,’ they say, ‘has been handed over by you to the pope, therefore everything now belongs to the pope, and you may as well not come at all now, or at least don’t interfere with us for the time being.”

“Here, brother, contempt is no use, even if he does despise Grushenka. He may despise her, but he still can’t tear himself away from her.”

“No, you have not, so as not to add to what has already been said once, and so as not to deprive people of freedom, for which you stood so firmly when you were on earth. Anything you proclaim anew will encroach upon the freedom of men’s faith, for it will come as a miracle, and the freedom of their faith was the dearest of all things to you, even then, one and a half thousand years ago. Was it not you who so often said then:”I want to make you free”?18”

“When she was given a kopeck, she would accept it and at once take it and put it in some poor box in the church or prison. When she was given a roll or a bun in the marketplace, she always went and gave this roll or bun to the first child she met, or else she would stop some one of our wealthiest ladies and give it to her; and the ladies would even gladly accept it. She herself lived only on black bread and water.”

“I’m unable to think up a situation in which life would not be suffering, that we’re all created in order to suffer, and that we all know it and keep thinking up ways of deceiving ourselves.”

“But, as so often happens, crimes committed with extraordinary boldness are more likely to succeed than any others.”

“As a child he was fond of hanging cats and then burying them with ceremony.”

“Drive nature out of the door and it will fly in at the window,”

“My brother asked the birds to forgive him: that sounds senseless, but it is right; for all is like an ocean, all is flowing and blending; a touch in one place sets up movement at the other end of the earth.”

“From the house of my childhood I have brought nothing but precious memories, for there are no memories more precious than those of early childhood in one's first home. And that is almost always so if there was any love and harmony in the family at all. Indeed, precious memories may remain even of a bad home, if only the heart knows how to find what is precious.”

“Imagine: inside, in the nerves, in the head―that is, these nerves are there in the brain... (damn them!) there are sort of little tails, the little tails of those nerves, and as soon as they begin quivering... that is, you see, I took at something with my eyes and begin quivering, those little tails... and when they quiver, then an image appears... it doesn't appear at once, but an instant, a second, passes... and then something like a moment appears; that is, not a moment―devil take the moment!―but an image; that is, an object, or an action, damn it! That's why I see and then think, because of those tails, not because I've got a soul, and that I am some sort of image and likeness. All that is nonsense! Rakitin explained it all to me yesterday, brother, and it simply bowled me over. It's magnificent, Alyosha, this science! A new man's arising―that I understand... And yet I am sorry to lose God!”

“Until one has indeed become the brother of all, there will be no brotherhood.”

“Life is full of the comic and is only majestic in its inner sense,”

“Why didst Thou reject that last gift? Had Thou accepted that last offer of the mighty spirit, Thou wouldst have accomplished all that man seeks on earth-- that is, someone to worship, someone to keep his conscience, and some means of uniting all in one unanimous and harmonious ant heap, because the craving for universal unity is the third and last anguish of men. Mankind as a whole has always striven to organize a universal state.”

“Otelo cree enloquecer cuando ve fracasado su ideal. Pero no acecha escondido, no escucha tras las puertas. es un hombre confiado. Ha sido necesario que le abran los ojos, que le hablen de la traición con insistencia para que él crea en ella. El verdadero celoso no es así. Es increíble la degradación en que se puede hundir un celoso sin que se lo reproche su conciencia.”

“Death always brings with it a kind of stupefaction, so difficult is it for the human mind to realize and resign itself to the blank and utter nothingness.”

“You used to be brave once, sir, you used to say ‘Everything is permitted,’ sir, and now you’ve got so frightened!” Smerdyakov murmured, marveling.”

“Those who were beginning to grow old had an air of youth, while there was something mature in the faces of the young.”