Inspirational Quotes by Fyodor Dostoevsky
“THE LIFE OF Björnstjerne Björnson was so full and active, and involves to such a degree the intellectual and political history of his country in the second half of the nineteenth century, that it is impossible in a short sketch to do more than indicate its main outlines. He was born, the son of a pastor, in Kvikne, Osterdal, Norway, on December 8, 1832, but his youth was spent mainly in the picturesque district of Romsdal. He was educated in Molde and Christiania, and early began a career as a journalist and dramatic critic. His first book of importance was “Synnöve Solbakken” (1857), and it was followed by “Arne,” “A Happy Boy” (1860), and “The Fisher Maiden.” These works deal with the Norwegian peasant, portrayed with understanding and sympathy, and, though true to nature, have an idyllic quality which separates them from much of the fiction of rural life that was being written elsewhere in Europe at that time.”
“It is so pleasant to think, with composure and satisfaction, of many obstacles, which often with painful feelings we may have regarded as invincible; pleasant to compare what we now are, with what we then were struggling to become.”
“Thither went afterwards the Chosen Vessel, To bring back comfort thence unto that Faith, Which of salvation's way is the beginning.”
“no one, in his present case, would have been so dangerous as Jarno, a man whose clear intellect could form a just and rigorous decision about present things; but who erred withal in enunciating these particular decisions with a kind of universal application; whereas, in truth, the judgments of the understanding are properly of force but once, and that in the strictest cases, and become inaccurate in some degree when applied to any other.”
“She leant back while the more earnest members of the club began to misconstrue her. The female mind, though cruelly practical in daily life, cannot bear to hear ideals belittled in conversation, and Miss Schlegel was asked however she could say such dreadful things, and what it would profit Mr. Bast if he gained the whole world and lost his own soul. She answered: “Nothing, but he would not gain his soul until he had gained a little of the world.” Then they said no they did not believe it, and she admitted that an overworked clerk may save his soul in the superterrestrial sense, where the effort will be taken for the deed, but she denied that he will ever explore the spiritual resources of this world, will ever know the rarer joys of the body, or attain to clear and passionate intercourse with his fellows.”
“The violence of Björnson’s political activity led to his withdrawing for a time to Germany under threat of prosecution for high treason; and for a time he returned to the writing of novels.”
“Envy and Arrogance and Avarice Are the three sparks that have all hearts enkindled.”
“It is clear that the varied productions of such a man cannot be represented by any one work. “A Happy Boy”, however, though one of his early books and written before he became immersed either in political controversy or modern social problems, is typical of his work in the period when he was recording the simple life of the peasantry among whom he had been born;”
“He had a good healthy sense of meum, and as little of tuum as he could help.”
“Oyvind was obliged to admit, as he laid himself down, that he had never gone to bed so happy before; he gave this an interpretation of his own, — he understood it to mean: I have never before gone to bed feeling so resigned to God’s will and so happy in it.”
“Now who art thou, that on the bench wouldst sit In judgment at a thousand miles away, With the short vision of a single span?”
“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.”
“a huge pear in his hand for his wife, he had not found his wife in the drawing-room, to his surprise had not found her in the study either, and saw her”
“En la infinitud del tiempo, en la infinitud de la materia y en la infinitud del espacio surge la burbuja de un organismo, que dura un instante y después estalla. Esa burbuja soy yo.”
“Sé extremadamente sutil, discreto, hasta el punto de no tener forma. Sé completamente misterioso y confidencial, hasta el punto de ser silencioso.”
“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.”
“That's just the point, my dear fellow, that cases may arise when the Government does not fulfill the will of its citizens and then Society announces its own will.”
topics: apropos
“Levin resolved the first question at once, with extraordinary ease, though it had seemed so difficult to him before.”
Group of Brands
© 2026 Bibleportal.com All rights reserved.
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.