Inspirational Quotes by Fyodor Dostoevsky

“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.”

“Nor have you a child in the house any longer, either,” said the school-master. The mother knew what he meant. “Oyvind has not been happy of late,” said she. “Ah, no! he who is ambitious never is happy,” — and he gazed up with an old man’s calmness into God’s peaceful heavens above.”

“my taste is for freedom, and I have no relish for constraint; I neither love nor hate anyone; I do not deceive this one or court that, or trifle with one or play with another. The modest converse of the shepherd girls of these hamlets and the care of my goats are my recreations; my desires are bounded by these mountains, and if they ever wander hence it is to contemplate the beauty of the heavens, steps by which the soul travels to its primeval abode.”

“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.”

“In her view the aim of every religion was merely to preserve certain proprieties while affording satisfaction to human desires”

“I don’t want every one to like me; I should think less of myself if some people did.”

“Napoleon's historian Thiers, like other of his historians, trying to justify his hero says that he was drawn to the walls of Moscow against his will. He is as right as other historians who look for the explanation of historic events in the will of one man; he is as right as the Russian historians who maintain that Napoleon was drawn to Moscow by the skill of”

“We should daily repeat to ourselves," I exclaimed, "that we should not interfere with our friends, unless to leave them in possession of their own joys, and increase their happiness by sharing it with them!”

“A good chessplayer having lost a game is sincerely convinced that his loss resulted from a mistake he made and looks for that mistake in the opening, but forgets that at each stage of the game there were similar mistakes and that none of his moves were perfect. He only notices the mistake to which he pays attention, because his opponent took advantage of it. How much more complex than this is the game of war, which occurs under certain limits of time, and where it is not one will that manipulates lifeless objects, but everything results from innumerable conflicts of various wills!”

“I also learned to cook; for much was to be seen in cookery. To cut up a hen, a pig, was quite a feast for me. I used to bring the entrails to my father, and he talked with me about them, as if I had been a student of anatomy. With suppressed joy, he would often call me his misfashioned son.”

“knowest not what thou sayest. I am but an ignorant man myself.” “Yes, yes,” says he, “you teachee me good, you teachee them good.” “No, no, Friday,” says I, “you shall go without me; leave me here to live by myself, as I did before.” He looked confused again at that word, and running to one of the hatchets which he used to wear, he takes it up hastily, comes and gives it to me. “What must I do with this?” says I to him. “You take kill Friday,” says he. “What must I kill you for?” said I again. He returns very quick, “What you send Friday away for? Take kill Friday, no send Friday away.” This he spoke so earnestly that I saw tears stand in his eyes. In a word, I so plainly discovered the utmost affection in him to me, and a firm resolution in him, that I told him then, and often after, that I would never send him away from me if he was willing to stay with me. Upon the whole, as I found by all his discourse a settled affection to me, and that nothing should part him from me, so I found all the foundation of his desire to go to his own country was laid in his ardent affection to the people, and his hopes of my doing them good; a thing which, as I had no notion of myself, so I had not the least thought or intention or desire of undertaking it. But still I found a strong inclination to my attempting an escape, as above, founded on the supposition gathered from the discourse, viz., that there were seventeen bearded men there; and, therefore, without any more delay I went to work with Friday, to find out a great tree proper to fell, and make a large periagua, or canoe, to undertake the voyage. There were trees enough in the island to have built a little fleet, not of periaguas and canoes, but even of good large vessels. But the main thing I looked at was, to get one so near the water that we might launch it when it”

“It was the tragic part of happiness; one’s right was always made of the wrong of some one else.”

“a character exposed to those strongest of all influences: the intrigues, flattery, and self-deception inseparable from power;”

“I don’t think I know what you mean,” she said; “you use too many figures of speech; I could never understand allegories. The two words in the language I most respect are Yes and No.”

“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.”

“Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship By J. W. von Goethe”