Inspirational Quotes by Fyodor Dostoevsky

“Perhaps it was owing to the terrible misery that was growing in my soul through something which was of more consequence than anything else about me: that something was the conviction that had come upon me that nothing in the world mattered. I”

“People talk to you a great deal about your education, but some good, sacred memory, preserved from childhood, is perhaps the best education. If a man carries many such memories with him into life, he is safe to the end of his days, and if one has only one good memory left in one's heart, even that may sometime be the means of saving us.”

“La razón es esclava de la pasión, y era yo el primer perjudicado por ella...”

“He dreamt that the whole world was condemned to a terrible new strange plague that had come to Europe from the depths of Asia.”

“Lo que quiero decir es que, si uno consigue convencer a otro, por medio de la lógica, de que no tiene motivos para llorar, no llorará. Esto es indudable. ¿Acaso usted no opina así?  Yo creo que si tuviera usted razón, la vida sería demasiado fácil.”

“they seek in very varied ways the destruction of the present for the sake of the better.”

“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.”

“Позор и срам! Одного боишься — это встречаться с русскими за границей.”

“seconded her efforts by meekly crawling along on his knees.”

“But scales hung before me and obscured my mind. Fateful, terrible scales! How did it come about that all this fell from my eyes, that all of a sudden I saw the light and understood everything?”

“Above all, do not lie to yourself. A man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point where he does not discern any truth either in himself or anywhere around him, and thus falls into disrespect towards himself and others. Not respecting anyone, he ceases to love, and having no love, he gives himself up to passions and coarse pleasures, in order to occupy and amuse himself, and in his vices reaches complete”

“But only one who can appease their conscience can take over their freedom.”

“Stop, stop! You queer fish!”

“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.”

“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”

“¿Comprende usted lo que significa no tener adónde ir?”

“If around you men are malicious and unfeeling and unwilling to listen to you, then fall down before them and beg them for forgiveness, for verily you are guilty of the fact that they do not want to listen to you.”

“My dear Mina, why are men so noble when we women are so little worthy of them? Here was I almost making fun of this great hearted, true gentleman. I burst into tears, I am afraid, my dear, you will think this a very sloppy letter in more ways than one, and I really felt very badly. Why can’t they let a girl marry three men, or as many as want her, and save all this trouble?”

“it is a vicious circle. Woman is deprived of rights from lack of education, and the lack of education results from the absence of rights.”