Inspirational Quotes by Fyodor Dostoevsky

“Ces incapables exécuteurs de la loi ne comprennent nullement qu’appliquer la loi sans en comprendre l’esprit, mène tout droit aux désordres. — «La loi le dit, que voulez-vous de plus?» Ils s’étonnent même sincèrement qu’on exige d’eux, outre l’exécution de la loi, du bon sens et une tête saine. La dernière condition surtout leur parait superflue, elle est pour eux d’un luxe révoltant, cela leur semble une vexation, de l’intolérance.”

“«Les instincts d’un bourreau existent en germe dans chacun de nos contemporains.»”

“Ensuite j’ai reconnu, Sonia, que si l’on attendait le moment où tout le monde sera intelligent, on devrait s’armer d’une trop longue patience. Plus tard encore je me suis convaincu que ce moment même n’arriverait jamais, que les hommes ne changeraient pas et qu’on perdait son temps à essayer de les modifier! Oui, c’est ainsi! C’est leur loi… Je sais maintenant, Sonia, que le maître chez eux est celui qui possède une intelligence puissante. Qui ose beaucoup a raison à leurs yeux. Qui les brave et les méprise s’impose à leur respect! C’est ce qui s’est toujours vu et se verra toujours! Il faudrait être aveugle pour ne pas s’en apercevoir!”

“Moreover, I felt weak and in the right mood, and besides, shamming so easily coexists with sincere feeling.”

“The emptier a man's head is, for instance, the less he fells the thirst to fill it.”

“A husband ought to live at home, and not in a crocodile...”

“Yes, she's rather good-looking; I think she's good-looking. After all, she drives other men out of their mind. She's tall and svelte. Only she's very thin. I think you could tie her in a knot or bend her double.”

“Di me le dirò che sono figlio del mio secolo, figlio della miscredenza e del dubbio, e non solo fino ad oggi, ma tale resterò (lo so con certezza) fino alla tomba. Quali terribili sofferenze mi è costata – e mi costa tuttora – questa sete di credere, che tanto più fortemente si fa sentire nella mia anima quando più forti mi appaiono gli argomenti ad essa contrari! Ciononostante Iddio mi manda talora degl’istanti in cui mi sento perfettamente sereno; in quegli istanti io scopro di amare e di essere amato dagli altri, e appunto in quegl’istanti io ho concepito un simbolo della fede, un Credo, in cui tutto per me è chiaro e santo. Questo Credo è molto semplice, e suona così: credere che non c’è nulla di più bello, di più profondo, più simpatico, più ragionevole, più virile e più perfetto di Cristo; anzi non soltanto non c’è, ma addirittura, con geloso amore, mi dico che non ci può essere. Non solo, ma arrivo a dire che se qualcuno mi dimostrasse che Cristo è fuori dalla verità e se fosse effettivamente vero che la verità non è in Cristo, ebbene io preferirei restare con Cristo piuttosto che con la verità.”

“Prisons and penal servitude do not of course rehabilitate the criminal; they merely punish him and ensure that society is kept safe from further attacks. The only effect of prison[s] is to generate hatred, the desire for forbidden pleasures and a terrifying frivolousness. But I am firmly convinced that the much acclaimed system of shutting people up in cells can only achieve false, spurious and superficial results. It is a system that sucks the lifeblood from the criminal, enervates his spirit, and then holds up a morally desiccated mummy as a model of rehabilitation and repentance. - The House of the Dead (1862)”

“No me gusta la fuerza bruta, pero la razón bruta es totalmente insoportable. No está bien utilizarla. Es como golpear por debajo del intelecto.”

“Pero a partir de hoy mi vida, toda mi vida, independientemente de lo que pueda pasar, no será ya irrazonable, no carecerá de sentido como hasta ahora, sino que en todos y en cada uno de sus momentos poseerá el sentido indudable del bien, que yo soy dueño de infundir en ella.»”

“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.”

“Let me speak at last,” she said. “For myself personally, I can’t conceive of love without family life. I am lonely, lonely as the moon in the sky, and a waning moon, too, and whatever you may say, I am convinced, I feel that this waning can only be restored by love in its ordinary sense. It seems to me that such love would define my duties, my work, make clear my conception of life. I want from love peace in soul, tranquility; I want the very opposite of musk, and spiritualism, and fin de siècle … in short”—she grew embarrassed—”a husband and children.”

“Live in the needs of the day.”

“Wertherish,”

“видал”

“Una idea justa no puede ser estéril”

“Las mujeres son el principal obstáculo en la carrera de un hombre. Es difícil amar a una mujer y hacer algo de valía. Sólo existe un medio de que el amor no se convierta en una traba: el matrimonio.”

“Woman, don't you know, is such a subject that however much you study it, it's always perfectly new." "Well, then, it would be better not to study it.”

“Everything presents itself to me, in the coarsest, most loathsome light.”