Inspirational Quotes by Fyodor Dostoevsky

“Defeat, my defeat, my deathless courage, You and I shall laugh together with the storm, And together we shall dig graves for all that die in us, and we shall stand in the sun with a will, And we shall be dangerous”

“With such a hell in your heart and your head, how can you live? How can you love?”

“Full freedom will come only when it makes no difference whether to live or not to live. That’s the goal for everyone.”

“Schoolboys are a merciless race, individually they are angels, but together, especially in schools, they are often merciless.”

“الانسان متى جحد المعجزة أسرع يجحد الرب، لأن ظمأه هو إلى العجائب لا إلى الرب؛ وإنه لكونه لا يستطيع أن يحيا بغير معجزات سيخلق هو بنفسه معجزات أقوى ، فهوى ؛ ولو كان متمردا كافرا ملحدا ، إلى خرافات سخيفة ، تنطلي عليه أباطيل السحرة وخزعبلاتهم. انك لم تنزل عن الصليب حين دعاك الجمهورإلى ذلك صائحا "انزل عن الصليب فنصدق أنك أنت" ، انك لم تنزل لأنك لم تشأ أن تستعبد البشر بالمعجزة، وانما أردت أن يجيؤوا إليك بدافع الايمان ، لا بدافع العجائب، كنت تريد أن يهبوا إليك محبتهم أحرارا لا أن ينصاعوا إليك عبيدا أذهلتهم قوتك.”

“An anxiety with no object or purpose in the present, and in the future nothing but endless sacrifice, by means of which he would attain nothing - that was what his days on earth held in store for him... What good was life to him? What prospects did he have? What did he have to strive for? Was he to live merely in order to exist? But a thousand times before he had been ready to give up his existence for an idea, for a hope, even for an imagining. Existence on its own had never been enough for him; he had always wanted more than that. Perhaps it was merely the strength of his own desires that made him believe he was a person to whom more was allowed than others.”

“Shower upon him every earthly blessing, drown him in bliss so that nothing but bubbles would dance on the surface of his bliss, as on a sea...and even then every man, out of sheer ingratitude, sheer libel, would play you some loathsome trick. He would even risk his cakes and would deliberately desire the most fatal rubbish, the most uneconomical absurdity, simply to introduce into all this positive rationality his fatal fantastic element...simply in order to prove to himself that men still are men and not piano keys.”

“My task is to explain to you as quickly as possible my essence, that is, what sort of man I am, what I believe in, and what I hope for, is that right? And therefore I declare that I accept God pure and simple. But this, however, needs to be noted: if God exists and if he indeed created the earth, then, as we know perfectly well, he created it in accordance with Euclidean geometry, and he created human reason with a conception of only three dimensions of space. At the same time there were and are even now geometers and philosophers, even some of the most outstanding among them, who doubt that the whole universe, or, even more broadly, the whole of being, was created purely in accordance with Euclidean geometry; they even dare to dream that two parallel lines, which according to Euclid cannot possibly meet on earth, may perhaps meet somewhere in infinity. I, my dear, have come to the conclusion that if I cannot understand even that, then it is not for me to understand about God. I humbly confess that I do not have any ability to resolve such questions, I have a Euclidean mind, an earthly mind, and therefore it is not for us to resolve things that are not of this world. And I advise you never to think about it, Alyosha my friend, and most especially about whether God exists or not. All such questions are completely unsuitable to a mind created with a concept of only three dimensions. And so, I accept God, not only willingly, but moreover I also accept his wisdom and his purpose, which are completely unknown to us; I believe in order, in the meaning of life, I believe in eternal harmony, in which we are all supposed to merge, I believe in the Word for whom the universe is yearning, and who himself was 'with God,' who himself is God, and so on and so forth, to infinity. Many words have been invented on the subject. It seems I'm already on a good path, eh? And now imagine that in the final outcome I do not accept this world of God's, created by God, that I do not accept and cannot agree to accept. With one reservation: I have a childlike conviction that the sufferings will be healed and smoothed over, that the whole offensive comedy of human contradictions will disappear like a pitiful mirage, a vile concoction of man's Euclidean mind, feeble and puny as an atom, and that ultimately, at the world's finale, in the moment of eternal harmony, there will occur and be revealed something so precious that it will suffice for all hearts, to allay all indignation, to redeem all human villainy, all bloodshed; it will suffice not only to make forgiveness possible, but also to justify everything that has happened with men--let this, let all of this come true and be revealed, but I do not accept it and do not want to accept it! Let the parallel lines even meet before my own eyes: I shall look and say, yes, they meet, and still I will not accept it.”

“It would be interesting to know what it is men are most afraid of.”

“with love one can live even without happiness. Even in sorrow life is sweet; life is sweet, however one lives.”

“كيف يمكن التعايش مع الفكرة التي تقول :” إن وعي الحياة فوق الحياة نفسها ، و معرفة قوانين السعادة – هي اعلى من السعادة” – ان ما يجب النضال ضده هي هذه الفكرة بالتحديد”

“Anyone who can appease a man's conscience can take his freedom away from him.”

“But what can a decent man speak of with most pleasure? Answer: Of himself. Well, so I will talk about myself.”

“Man is unhappy because he doesn't know he's happy; only because of that. It's everything, everything, Whoever learns will at once immediately become happy, that same moment... "And when did you find out that you were so happy?" "Last week, on Tuesday, no, Wednesday, because it was Wednesday by then, in the night." "And what was the occasion?" "I don't remember, just so; I was pacing the room...it makes no difference. I stopped my clock, it was two thirty-seven." "As an emblem that time should stop?" Kirillov did not reply. "They're not good," he suddenly began again, "because they don't know they're good. When they find out, they won't violate the girl. They must find out that they're good, then they'll all become good at once, all, to a man. "Well, you did find out, so you must be good?" "I am good." "With that I agree, incidentally," Stavrogin muttered frowningly. "He who teaches that all are good, will end the world." "He who taught it was crucified." "He will come, and his name is the man-god." "The God-man?" "The man-god--that's the whole difference." "Can it be you who lights the icon lamp?" "Yes, I lit it." "You've become a believer?" "The old woman likes the icon lamp...she's busy today," Kirillov muttered. "But you don't pray yet?" "I pray to everything. See, there's a spider crawling on the wall, I look and am thankful to it for crawling." His eyes lit up again. He kept looking straight at Stavrogin, his gaze firm and unflinching. Stavrogin watched him frowningly and squeamishly, but there was no mockery in his eyes. "I bet when I come the next time you'll already believe in God," he said, getting up and grabbing his hat. "Why?" Kirillov also rose. "If you found out that you believe in God, you would believe; but since you don't know yet that you believe in God, you don't believe," Nikolai Vsevolodovich grinned.”

“الإنسان هو الكائن الذي يتعود كل شئ! أظن أن هذا أحسن تعريف للإنسان ..”

“You were destined for me. Perhaps as a punishment.”

“The formula ‘two and two make five’ is not without its attractions.”

“The only happy marriages I know are arranged ones.”

“When Levin thought what he was and what he was living for, he could find no answer to the questions and was reduced to despair; but when he left off questioning himself about it, it seemed as though he knew both what he was and what he was living for, acting and living resolutely and without hesitation.”

“Here is a commandment for you: seek happiness in sorrow. Work, work tirelessly.”