Inspirational Quotes by Fyodor Dostoevsky

“it's for God to judge them, not for us.”

“It seemed to her that certain places on the earth must yield happiness, like a plant peculiar to that soil and growing poorly anywhere else.”

“Душа ее, сломленная гордыней, находила успокоение в христианской кротости. Наслаждаясь собственной слабостью, Эмма смотрела на свое безволие, как на широкие врата, через которые в нее войдет благодать. Значит, есть же на земле неизреченные блаженства, и перед ними земное счастье - прах, есть любовь превыше всякой другой, любовь непрерывная, бесконечная, неуклонно растущая! Лелея обманчивые надежды, Эмма представляла себе, что душа человеческая, достигнув совершенства, способна воспарить над землею и слиться с небесами. И она мечтала об этом. Ей хотелось стать святой. Она купила себе четки, стала носить ладанки; она думала о том, как хорошо было бы повесить у себя в комнате над изголовьем усыпанный изумрудами ковчежец и каждый вечер прикладываться к нему.”

“Felaket tek başına gelmez.”

“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”

“This soldier had been taken prisoner in some remote part of Asia, and was threatened with an immediate agonising death if he did not renounce Christianity and follow Islam.”

“It begins to seem natural to him that the pleasures attainable through his capricious fantasy are fuller, richer and dearer than life itself. Finally, in his delusion he completely loses that moral sense through which man is capable of appreciating all the beauty of reality. He goes astray, loses himself, lets slip those moments of real happiness; and, in a state of apathy, he folds his arms and does not wish to know that man’s life consists in constant contemplation of oneself in nature and in day-to-day reality.”

“That is a fact and it speaks, it shouts, for itself… but when it comes to inner feelings, that’s quite a different matter, gentlemen.”

“And to a place I come where nothing shines.”

“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”

“Para el realista no es la fe lo que nace del milagro, sino el milagro el que nace de la fe.”

“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.”

“...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.”

“bestiality, and it all comes from lying continually to others and to himself. A man who lies to himself is often the first to take offense. It sometimes feels very good to take offense, doesn’t it? And surely he knows that no one has offended him, and that he himself has invented the offense and told lies just for the beauty of it, that he has exaggerated for the sake of effect, that he has picked on a word and made a mountain out of a pea—he knows all of that, and still he is the first to take offense, he likes feeling offended, it gives him great pleasure, and thus he reaches the point of real hostility …”

“I could never understand how one can love one’s neighbours. It’s just one’s neighbours, to my mind, that one can’t love, though one might love those at a distance. I”

“Az a förtelmes mocsár, amelybe önszántából belesüllyedt, túlságosan nyomasztotta, és mint ilyen esetben nagyon sokan, ő is a helyváltoztatásban bízott a leginkább: csak ne ezek az emberek, csak ne ezek a körülmények, csak elrepülni erről az átkozott helyről - és minden újjászületik, másképp alakul!”

“I would be offended if he were not jealous. I am like that. I am not offended at jealousy.”

“Añade que le he querido durante una hora, sólo durante una hora; pero que se acuerde siempre de esta hora. Y”

“... even the martyr loves sometimes to have fun with it's desperation, and that is, again, from desperation.”

“But hesitation, anxiety, the struggle between belief and disbelief—all that is sometimes such a torment for a conscientious man like yourself, that it’s better to hang oneself. Precisely because I knew you had a tiny bit of belief in me, I let in some final disbelief, by telling you that anecdote. I’m leading you alternately between belief and disbelief, and I have my own purpose in doing so. A new method, sir: when you’ve completely lost faith in me, then you’ll immediately start convincing me to my face that I am not a dream but a reality—I know you now; and then my goal will be achieved. And it is a noble goal. I will sow a just a tiny seed of faith in you, and from it an oak will grow—and such an oak that you, sitting in that oak, will want to join ‘the desert fathers and the blameless women’; because secretly you want that ver-ry, ver-ry much, you will dine on locusts, you will drag yourself to the desert to seek salvation!”