Inspirational Quotes by Fyodor Dostoevsky

“...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!”

“People should be nourished like children, and some of them like the patients in the hospitals.”

“Yes, guilty!” And then it was the same on each point:”

“Anyway, I give you my blessing; see if you can get at the truth, and come back and tell me: after all, it’ll be easier to make the trip to the next world once you know for sure what’s there.”

“Life is paradise, and we are all in paradise, but we don't want to realize it, and if we did care to realize it, paradise would be established in all the world tomorrow.”

“One can love one's neighbors in the abstract, or even at a distance, but at close quarters it's almost impossible. If”

“How can we blame children if they measure us according to our measure?”

“Sajnos, ezek az ifjak nem értik, hogy az életük feláldozása a legtöbb ilyen esetben talán a legkönnyebb áldozat, és ha például fiatalságtól pezsgő életükből nehéz tanu­lásra, tudományra kellene feláldozni öt-hat évet - csakis azért, hogy megtízszerezzék erejüket ugyanannak az igazságnak a szolgálatára és ugyanannak a hőstettnek a véghezvitelére, amelyet magukban dédelgetnek és meg akarnak valósítani -, ez az áldozat, lépten-nyomon látjuk, igen sokuknak meghaladná az erejét.”

“My friends, ask gladness from God. Be glad as children, as birds in the sky. And let man's sin not disturb you in your efforts, do not fear that it will dampen your endeavor and keep it from being fulfilled, do not say, 'Sin is strong, impiety is strong, the bad environment is strong, and we are lonely and powerless, the bad environment is strong, and we are lonely and powerless, the bad environment will dampen us and keep our good endeavor from being fulfilled.' Flee from such despondency, my children! There is only one salvation for you: take yourself up, and make yourself responsible for all the sins of men. For indeed it is so, my friend, and the moment you make yourself sincerely responsible for everything and everyone, you will see at once that it is really so, that it is you who are guilty on behalf of all and for all.”

“If you pardon all the evil done to you, you encourage others to do you evil! If you give your cloak to him who steals your coat, how long will it be, before your shirt and trousers will go also?”

“As there are as many minds as there are heads, so there are as many kinds of love as there are hearts (p. 163).”

“and at once, amidst all the skaters, he knew her. He knew she was there by the rapture and the terror that seized his heart.”

“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.”