Inspirational Quotes by Fyodor Dostoevsky
“No, not about Diderot. Above all, don't lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to such a pass that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love, and in order to occupy and distract himself without love he gives way to passions and coarse pleasures, and sinks to bestiality in his vices, all from continual lying to other men and to himself. The man who lies to himself can be more easily offended than anyone. You know it is sometimes very pleasant to take offence, isn't it? A man may know that nobody has insulted him, but that he has invented the insult for himself, has lied and exaggerated to make it picturesque, has caught at a word and made a mountain out of a molehill- he knows that himself, yet he will be the first to take offence, and will revel in his resentment till he feels great pleasure in it, and so pass to genuine vindictiveness.”
“What seems to you bad within you will grow purer from the very fact of your observing it in yourself.”
“Give a map of the heavens”, he wrote, “to a Russian schoolboy who has never heard of such a map before, and he’ll return it to you the next day full of corrections.” No knowledge and limitless presumptuousness—that’s what the German meant to say about Russian schoolboys.”
“Maximov, a landowner of Tula. He at once entered into our”
“I become a misanthrope, he said, the minute I come into contact with people. And it has always been the same with me; the more I have detested people individually, the more passionately I have loved humanity in general.”
“My young brother asked forgiveness of the birds: it seems senseless, yet it is right, for all is like an ocean, all flows and connects; touch it in one place and it echoes at the other end of the world. Let it be madness to ask forgiveness of the birds, still it would be easier for the birds, and for a child, and for any animal near you, if you yourself were more gracious than you are now, if only by a drop, still it would be easier. All is like an ocean, I say to you. Tormented by universal love, you, too, would then start praying to the birds, as if in a sort of ecstasy, and entreat them to forgive you your sin. Cherish this ecstasy, however senseless it may seem to people.”
“Perhaps God was moved by the tears of someone praying for me, perhaps the entreaties of my late mother, perhaps a heavenly spirit who came to my rescue—I don’t know, but the devil was defeated.”
topics: spirituality
“The more you succeed in loving, the more you’ll be convinced of the existence”
“Ellos también sufren, y mucho, sin duda para expiar la falta de sus padres, que han comido el fruto prohibido... Pero estos razonamientos son de otro mundo que el corazón humano no puede comprender desde aquí abajo. Un ser inocente no es capaz de sufrir por otro, y menos una tierna criatura.”
“fear, too, though fear is only the consequence of every sort of falsehood.”
“لأنّ الإنسان الشاذ ، ليس حتما-ليس دائما- ذلك الذي يسلك سبيل الخصوص والتفرّد ، حتى لقد يتّفق ، خلافاً لهذا ، أن يحمل في ذاته حقيقة عصره ، بينما يكون الناس ، جميع الناس ، من معاصريه ، قد ابتعدوا عن هذه الحقيقة إلى حين ، كأنما دفعتهم عنها ريحٌ هبّت على حين فجأة...”
topics: loneliness
“the Lord God has given us so little time, only twenty-four hours in the day, so that one hasn’t even time to get sleep enough, much less to repent of one’s sins.”
“When it comes to poetry, it’s a lot of rubbish. Just think about it: who in the world speaks in rhyme?”
“Love in dreams is greedy for immediate action, rapidly performed and in the sight of all.”
“He was not even particularly struck by the Pole’s absurd wig made in Siberia, with love-locks foolishly combed forward over the temples.”
“El origen de la mayor parte de nuestros animales domésticos, probablemente quedará siempre dudoso. Pero puedo decir que, considerando los perros domésticos de todo el mundo, después de una laboriosa recopilación de todos los datos conocidos, he llegado a la conclusión de que han sido amansadas varias especies salvajes de cánidos, y que su sangre, mezclada en algunos casos, corre por las venas de nuestras razas domésticas.”
“Above all, I wouldn’t want to prove anything, I simply want to live; to cause no evil to anyone but myself. I have that right haven’t I? - Anna Karenina, p.616”
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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.