Inspirational Quotes by Fyodor Dostoevsky
“Folks is all queer nowadays,' said the peasant-woman.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky ,
from Crime and Punishment
“dare you, looking upon me, assert that I am not a pig?”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky ,
from Crime and Punishment
“And then, however limited his sphere, he still preserves in his bosom the sweet feeling of liberty, and knows that he can quit his prison whenever he likes.”
“...for love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing compared with love in dreams. Love in dreams is greedy for immediate action, rapidly performed and in the sight of all... But active love is labor and fortitude, and for some people too, perhaps, a complete science.”
“La razón es esclava de la pasión, y era yo el primer perjudicado por ella...”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky ,
from Crimen y castigo
“He dreamt that the whole world was condemned to a terrible new strange plague that had come to Europe from the depths of Asia.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky ,
from Crime and Punishment
“She said to herself: “No, just now I can’t think of it, later on, when I am calmer.” But this calm for thought never came; every time the thought rose of what she had done and what would happen to her, and what she ought to do, a horror came over her and she drove those thoughts away. “Later, later,” she said—“when I am calmer.”
“He knew that an apple should not be plucked while it is green. It will fall of itself when ripe, but if picked unripe the apple is spoiled, the tree is harmed, and your teeth are set on edge.”
“He had not even thought of saying this, but it was suddenly said of itself.”
“he did you; be reconciled with him truly. If you are repentant, it means that you love. And if you love, you already belong to God … With love everything is bought, everything is saved.”
“ROSTROS He visto un rostro con mil semblantes, y un rostro que tenía sólo un semblante, como si estuviera contenido en un molde inmutable. He visto un rostro cuyo brillo podía ver a través de la fealdad que lo cubría, y un rostro cuyo brillo tuve que apartar, para ver cuán hermoso era. He visto un viejo rostro lleno de arrugas de la nada, y un rostro lozano en el que estaban grabadas todas las cosas. Conozco todos los rostros, porque los veo a través de la urdimbre que mis ojos van tejiendo, y miro la realidad que está detrás del tejido.”
“Ahelyett, hogy birtokba vetted volna az emberek szabadságát, még nagyobbra növelted! Vagy elfelejtetted, hogy az ember a nyugalmat, sőt akár a halált is többre becsüli, mint a szabad választást a jó és a gonosz megismerésében? Nincsen csábítóbb az ember számára, mint lelkiismeretének szabadsága, de nincs gyötrelmesebb sem.”
topics: freedom
“But only one who can appease their conscience can take over their freedom.”
“Mi opinión es que los hombres se dividen, en general y de acuerdo con el orden de la naturaleza, en dos categorías: una inferior, la de los individuos ordinarios, es decir la gran mayoría cuya única misión es reproducir seres semejantes a ellos, y otra superior, la de los verdaderos hombres, los individuos extraordinarios, que se complacen en dejar oír en su medio “palabras nuevas”. Naturalmente, hay infinitas subdivisiones, pero los rasgos fundamentales de las dos categorías son, a mi entender, bastante claros. La primera categoría se compone de hombres conservadores, muy prudentes, que viven en la obediencia, porque esta obediencia los hace feliz. Y a mí me parece que ellos están obligados a obedecer, porque este es su papel en la vida y ellos no ven nada humillante en desempeñarlo. Los hombres de la segunda categoría, todos ellos, quiebran las leyes, o, al menos, tienden a violarlas constantemente.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky ,
from Crimen y Castigo
topics: category-of-people
“Love the animals: God gave them the rudiments of thought and an untroubled joy.”
“The old doctor who used to cure all sorts of disease has completely disappeared, I assure you, now there are only specialists and they all advertise in the newspapers”
“Chapter 44 — The Coming Election The very greatness of Mr Melmotte’s popularity, the extent of the admiration which was accorded by the public at large to his commercial enterprise and financial sagacity, created a peculiar bitterness in the opposition that was organized against him at Westminster. As the high mountains are intersected by deep valleys, as puritanism in one age begets infidelity in the next, as in many countries the thickness of the winter’s ice will be in proportion to the number of the summer musquitoes, so was the keenness of the hostility displayed on this occasion in proportion to the warmth of the support which was manifested. As the great man was praised, so also was he abused. As he was a demi-god to some, so was he a fiend to others. And indeed there was hardly any other way in which it was possible to carry on the contest against him. From the moment in which Mr Melmotte had declared his purpose of standing for Westminster in the Conservative interest, an attempt was made to drive him down the throats of the electors by clamorous assertions of his unprecedented commercial greatness.”
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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.