Inspirational Quotes by Fyodor Dostoevsky
“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?”
“Is any man so foolish as to fear change, to which all things that once were not owe their being?”
“¿Recuerda usted algún gran error que cometiera en sus primeros tiempos, duquesa? –preguntó mirándola desde el otro lado de la mesa. –Muchos, por desgracia –exclamó ella. –Pues vuelva a cometerlos –dijo él con gravedad–. Para recuperar la juventud, basta con repetir las mismas locuras.”
“I imagine," he said, "that no sort of activity is likely to be lasting if it is not founded on self-interest, that's a universal principle, a philosophical principle,”
“Evidemment, approuva Stépane Arcadiévitch ; mais n'est-ce pas le but de la civilisation que de tout convertir en jouissance ?”
“Es una estupidez dejarse dominar por el pasado; es preciso luchar para vivir mejor, mucho mejor.”
“the dead man reviving in his heart died again and only weighed his heart down painfully.”
“With one burning hand she held his and with the other she kept pushing him away.”
“Being lost and dead he had only to lie still, and was no longer obliged to wander through the pathless taiga. Otherwise, what would have been the point in getting lost? “We’ll go to the Great Toyon!” “And why should I go to him?” asked Makar. “To be judged,” said the priest sadly, and in a somewhat sentimental tone of voice. Makar remembered that indeed after death one is supposed to appear somewhere at a judgment. He had heard it in church. The priest was right; there was no help for it, and he would have to get up. And so he rose, grumbling that there was no rest for a body even after death.”
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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.