Inspirational Quotes by Fyodor Dostoevsky

“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.”

“I see the sun, and if I don't see the sun, I know it's there. And there's a whole life in that, in knowing that the sun is there.”

“Iubirea este o comoară fără preţ, cu care poţi dobândi o lume întreagă, care-ţi îngăduie să răscumperi nu numai păcatele tale, dar şi pe ale altora.”

“Alyosha seemed more of a realist than anything. Of course, in the monastery he believed absolutely in miracles, but in my opinion miracles never bother a realist.”

“Dacă s-ar distruge în omenire credinţa în nemurirea sufletului, izvoarele dragostei ar seca pe loc în inima omului, şi o dată cu ele orice forţă activă care să menţină viaţa pe pământ. Mai mult: că atunci nimic din ce se poate întâmpla n-ar mai fi imoral, că totul ar fi permis în lume, chiar şi antropofagia.”

“Todos se detuvieron en silencio junto a una roca grande. Aliosha miró y todo el cuadro de lo que Sneguiriov le había contado hacía tiempo sobre Iliúshechka –de cómo éste, llorando y abrazando a su padre, exclamó: «¡Papi, papi, cómo te ha humillado!»– apareció de golpe en su imaginación. Algo sacudió su alma. Con semblante serio y grave envolvió con la mirada todas las caras luminosas, queridas, de los escolares, de los compañeros de Iliusha, y les dijo: –Señores, me gustaría decirles unas palabras aquí, en este lugar. Los chicos lo rodearon y enseguida fijaron en él sus miradas atentas, expectantes. –Señores, vamos a despedirnos muy pronto. De momento estaré un tiempo con mis dos hermanos, uno de los cuales se va al destierro y el otro está al borde de la muerte. Pero pronto dejaré esta ciudad, quizá para mucho tiempo. Así que tenemos que despedirnos, señores. Decidamos aquí, junto a la roca de Iliusha, que nunca vamos a olvidarnos de Iliúshechka en primer lugar y, en segundo, los unos a los otros. Sea lo que sea lo que nos pase en la vida, aunque estemos veinte años sin vernos, aun así vamos a recordar que hemos enterrado a un pobre niño al que una vez tiramos piedras, ¿lo recuerdan?, ahí, junto a la pasarela, y que después todos lo quisimos. Era un buen niño, un niño valiente y bondadoso, sintió el”

“She generally gave herself very good advice, (though she very seldom followed it), and sometimes she scolded herself so severely as to bring tears into her eyes; and once she remembered trying to box her own ears for having cheated herself in a game of croquet she was playing against herself, for this curious child was very fond of pretending to be two people. ‘But it’s no use now,’ thought poor Alice, ‘to pretend to be two people! Why, there’s hardly enough of me left to make one respectable person!”

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

“The poet replied: “I always am, my child; you will be too in a few years. While one is climbing the ladder, one sees the top and feels hopeful; but when one has reached that summit, one sees the descent and the end which is death. It is slow work ascending, but one descends rapidly. At your age one is joyous; one hopes for many things which never come to pass. At mine, one expects nothing but death.”

“In the entr’acte Levin and Pestsov fell into an argument upon the merits and defects of music of the Wagner school. Levin maintained that the mistake of Wagner and all his followers lay in their trying to take music into the sphere of another art, just as poetry goes wrong when it tries to paint a face as the art of painting ought to do, and as an instance of this mistake he cited the sculptor who carved in marble certain poetic phantasms flitting round the figure of the poet on the pedestal. "These phantoms were so far from being phantoms that they were positively clinging on the ladder," said Levin. [...] Pestsov maintained that art is one, and that it can attain its highest manifestations only by conjunction with all kinds of art.”

“He felt himself and did not want to be anyone else. All he wanted now was to be better than he had been before.”

“Como é bom viver,”

“Her eyes, brimming with tears, glittered like flames seen through water.”

“Elle ne se doutait point que l’amour, disparu de sa vie, palpitait là, près d’elle, sous cette chemise de grosse toile, dans ce cœur d’adolescent ouvert aux émanations de sa beauté.”

“Car, depuis trois ans, il l’avait soigneusement évitée par suite de cette lâcheté naturelle qui caractérise le sexe fort ; et Emma continuait avec des gestes mignons de tête, plus câline qu’une chatte amoureuse :”

“(La felicità) Un giorno o l’altro è possibile incontrarla [...] un giorno, all’improvviso, quando oramai non si sperava più. Allora si intravedono orizzonti, è come se una voce gridasse: ‘Eccola!’ E tu senti il bisogno di confidare a una persona tutti i segreti della tua vita, di darle tutto, di sacrificarle tutto! Non è necessario spiegarsi, ci si intuisce. E come se ci fossimo già visti nei nostri sogni. [...] E finalmente eccolo là, il tesoro che hai cercato tanto a lungo, eccolo là, davanti a te; brilla, scintilla. Tuttavia si continua a dubitare, non si osa ancora crederci; si resta abbagliati come chi esce dalle tenebre alla luce.”

“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.”

“Hiç ayrılmadan yaşamak mümkün değil.”

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

“For beggary a man is not chased out of human society with a stick, he is swept out with a broom, so as to make it as humiliating as possible;”