Inspirational Quotes by Fyodor Dostoevsky
“How great would be the disgrace to such a borough as that of Westminster if it should find that it had been taken in by a false spirit of speculation and that it had surrendered itself to gambling when it had thought to do honour to honest commerce.”
“At the end of half an hour Tom had a vague general idea of his lesson, but no more, for his mind was traversing the whole field of human thought, and his hands were busy with distracting recreations.”
“He talked to her as people commonly do talk in society—all sorts of nonsense, but nonsense to which he could not help attaching a special meaning in her case. Although he said nothing to her that he could not have said before everybody, he felt that she was becoming more and more dependent upon him, and the more he felt this, the better he liked it, and the tenderer was his feeling for her.”
“we must inevitably assume that the historian who judges Alexander will also after the lapse of some time turn out to be mistaken in his view of what is good for humanity.”
“If it seemeth to thee that thou knowest many things, and understandest them well, know also that there are many more things which thou knowest not.”
“ROSTROS He visto un rostro con mil semblantes, y un rostro que tenía sólo un semblante, como si estuviera contenido en un molde inmutable. He visto un rostro cuyo brillo podía ver a través de la fealdad que lo cubría, y un rostro cuyo brillo tuve que apartar, para ver cuán hermoso era. He visto un viejo rostro lleno de arrugas de la nada, y un rostro lozano en el que estaban grabadas todas las cosas. Conozco todos los rostros, porque los veo a través de la urdimbre que mis ojos van tejiendo, y miro la realidad que está detrás del tejido.”
“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.”
“And then, however limited his sphere, he still preserves in his bosom the sweet feeling of liberty, and knows that he can quit his prison whenever he likes.”
“man is created for happiness, that happiness is within him, in the satisfaction of simple human needs, and that all unhappiness arises not from privation but from superfluity.”
“On awaking Oyvind looked around to find them all gone; then he remembered the day before, and the burning, cruel pain in his heart began at once. “This, I shall never be rid of again,” thought he; and there came over him a feeling of indifference, as though his whole future had dropped away from him.”
“My bones were buried by Octavian. I am Virgilius; and for no crime else Did I lose heaven, than for not having faith;”
“Serlo himself loved music much: he used to maintain, that a player without taste for it never could attain a distinct conception and feeling of the scenic art. "As a man performs," he would observe, "with far more ease and dignity, when his gestures are accompanied and guided by a tune; so the player ought, in idea as it were, to set to music even his prose parts, that he may not monotonously slight them over in his individual style, but treat them in suitable alternation by time and measure.”
“Thou'rt wise, and knowest better than I speak." And as he is, who unwills what he willed, And by new thoughts doth his intention change, So that from his design he quite withdraws,”
“Only half a word that is to the point can kindle laughter under such circumstances, and especially when it is dangerous to laugh.”
“not by gunpowder but by those who invented it would matters be settled.”
“Love naturally begins in secresy because it begins in shyness; but it must live openly because it lives in joy. It is as when the leaves are changing; that which is to grow cannot conceal itself, and in every instance you see that all which is dry falls from the tree the moment the new leaves begin to sprout.”
“To the unblushing womankind of Florence To go about displaying breast and paps.”
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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.