Inspirational Quotes by Fyodor Dostoevsky
“Avant qu’elle se mariât, elle avait cru avoir de l’amour ; mais le bonheur qui aurait dû résulter de cet amour n’étant pas venu, il fallait qu’elle se fût trompée, songeait-elle. Et Emma cherchait à savoir ce que l’on entendait au juste dans la vie par les mots de félicité, de passion et d’ivresse, qui lui avaient paru si beaux dans les livres.”
“On fine summer evenings, at the hour when the warm streets are empty and the maids play shuttlecock in doorways, he would open his window and lean out on the sill. The river, which turns this part of Rouen into a sort of shabby little Venice, flowed by beneath him, yellow, violet or blue between its bridges and its railings. Some workmen were crouched down on the bank, washing their arms in the water. On poles projecting from the lofts up above, skeins of cotton hung out to dry. In front, away beyond the roof-tops, was a pure expanse of sky with a red sun setting. How good it would be over yonder, now! How cool under the beeches! He opened his nostrils to breathe in the wholesome country smells - which failed to reach him here.”
“order to find them at the bottom of the box, Rodolphe disturbed all the others, and mechanically began rummaging amidst this mass of papers and things, finding pell-mell bouquets, garters, a black mask, pins, and hair—hair! dark and fair, some even, catching in the hinges of the box, broke when it was opened. Thus dallying with his souvenirs, he examined the writing and the style of the letters, as varied as their orthography. They were tender or jovial, facetious, melancholy; there were some that asked for love, others that asked for money. A word recalled faces to him, certain gestures, the sound of a voice; sometimes, however, he remembered nothing at all.”
“Before a Parisienne in lace, in the salon of some illustrious physician, a person of importance with medals and a carriage, the poor clerk, no doubt, would have trembled like a child; but here in Rouen, by the quay, with the wife of this small country practitioner, he felt at ease, certain in advance that he would dazzle her. Self-confidence depends upon surroundings: one does not speak the same way in a grand apartment as in a garret, and a rich woman seems to have all her banknotes about her, guarding her virtue, like a cuirass, in the lining of her corset.”
topics: relativity
“Those who were beginning to grow old had an air of youth, while there was something mature in the faces of the young.”
“But the most wretched thing, is it not—is to drag out, as I do, a useless existence. If our pains were only of some use to someone, we should find consolation in the thought of the sacrifice.”
“Au fond de son âme, cependant, elle attendait un événement. Comme les matelots en détresse elle promenait sur la solitude de sa vie des yeux désespérés, cherchant au loin quelque voile blanche dans les brumes de l’horizon. Elle ne savait pas quel serait ce hasard, le vent qui le pousserait jusqu’à elle, vers quel rivage il la mènerait, s’il était chaloupe ou vaisseau à trois ponts, chargé d’angoisses ou plein de félicités jusqu’aux sabords. Mais chaque matin, à son réveil, elle l’espérait pour la journée, et elle écoutait tous les bruits, se levait en sursaut, s’étonnait qu’il ne vînt pas; puis, au coucher du soleil, toujours plus triste, désirait être au lendemain.”
“Company would be a palpable improvement”
“How fairylike does everything appear to her enchanted vision!”
topics: becky
“Tom se dijo que, después de todo, el mundo no era tan malo como parecía. Había descubierto, sin darse cuenta, una gran ley que rige los actos humanos, a saber: que para que un hombre o un muchacho codicie algo, basta con hacer que le sea difícil alcanzarlo.”
“The old lady whirled round, and snatched her skirts out of danger. The lad fled on the instant, scrambled up the high board-fence, and disappeared over it. His aunt Polly stood surprised a moment, and then broke into a gentle laugh.”
“one or two were experiences of my own, the rest those of boys who were schoolmates of mine.”
“you are in love—that’s a good thing—that’s about the best thing that can happen to anyone.”
“Women are supposed to be very calm generally: but women feel just as men feel; they need exercise for their faculties and a field for their efforts as much as their brothers do." Jane Eyre”
“THROUGH them for so small a thing as a boy; they were her state pair, the pride of her heart, and were built for "style," not service—she could have seen through a pair of stove-lids just as well. She looked perplexed”
“My personal life is as monotonous as ever; but they have given me permission to walk in the garden, where there are almost seventeen trees ! This is a great happiness for me. Moreover, I am given a candle in the evenings—that's my second piece of luck. The third will be mine if you answer as soon as possible, and send me the next number of the 0. Z. I am in the same position as a country subscriber, and await each number as a great event, like some landed proprietor dying of boredom in the provinces. Will you send me some historical works ? That would be splendid. But best of all would be the Bible (both Testaments). I need one. Should it prove possible, send it in a French translation. But if you could add as well a Slav edition, it would be the height of bliss. Of”
“I’m not one of those men who submit to uneasiness and worry without having the force of character to face them. "I must think it over, come to a decision, and put it out of my mind," he said aloud.”
“La verdad y la creencia en la verdad de una cosa son dos mundos de intereses completamente extraños el uno al otro, son casi dos mundos opuestos, se va del uno al otro por caminos profundamente diversos.”
“She now felt an incessant and universal numbness.”
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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.