Inspirational Quotes by Fyodor Dostoevsky
“Old Scratch,1 but laws-a-me! he’s my own dead sister’s boy, poor thing, and I ain’t got”
“She was so overcome by the splendor of his achievement that she took him into the closet and selected a choice apple and delivered it to him, along with an improving lecture upon the added value and flavor a treat took to itself when it came without sin through virtuous effort. And while she closed with a happy Scriptural flourish, he “hooked” a doughnut.”
“He would now have comprehended that work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do, and that play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do.”
“Then her conscience reproached her, and she yearned to say something kind and loving; but she judged that this would be construed into a confession that she had been in the wrong, and discipline forbade that. So she kept silence, and went about her affairs with a troubled heart.”
“Poco a poco comenzaron a aburrirse y vagaron silenciosos y melancólicos por la isla. Tom se sorprendió a sí mismo escribiendo Becky en la arena; borró el nombre con rabia, pero su mano volvió a escribirlo, se sonrojó y se fue con los otros para ponerse a salvo de la tentación de escribirlo de nuevo.”
“And such a luxury to him was this petting of his sorrows, that he could not bear to have any worldly cheeriness or any grating delight intrude upon it; it was too sacred for such contact...”
“Then Huckleberry and Tom stood dumb and staring, and heard the stonyhearted liar reel off his serene statement, they expecting every moment that the clear sky would deliver God’s lightnings upon his head, and wondering to see how long the stroke was delayed. And when he had finished and still stood alive and whole, their wavering impulse to break their oath and save the poor betrayed prisoner’s life faded and vanished away, for plainly this miscreant had sold himself to Satan and it would be fatal to meddle with the property of such a power as that.”
“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.”
“They fried the fish with the bacon and were astonished; for no fish had ever seemed so delicious before. They did not know that the quicker a fresh-water fish is on the fire after he is caught the better he is; and they reflected little upon what a sauce open-air sleeping, open-air exercise, bathing, and a large ingredient of hunger makes, too.”
“The stillness, the solemnity that brooded in the woods, and the sense of loneliness, began to tell upon the spirits of the boys. They fell to thinking. A sort of undefined longing crept upon them. This took dim shape, presently—it was budding home-sickness. Even Finn the Red-Handed was dreaming of his doorsteps and empty hogsheads. But they were all ashamed of their weakness, and none was brave enough to speak his thought.”
“Le romancier qui écrit une histoire d’adulte sait exactement où et comment s’arrêter, c’est le plus souvent par un mariage. Quand il s’agit d’un enfant, il s’arrête où il peut.”
“...he’s my own dead sister’s boy, poor thing, and I ain’t got the heart to lash him, somehow. Every time I let him off, my conscience does hurt me so, and every time I hit him my old heart most breaks.”
“The old lady pulled her spectacles down and looked over them about the”
“That’s it!” said Huck; “they done that last summer, when Bill Turner got drownded; they shoot a cannon over the water, and that makes him come up to the top. Yes, and they take loaves of bread and put quicksilver in ‘em and set ’em afloat, and wherever there’s anybody that’s drownded, they’ll float right there and stop.” “Yes, I’ve heard about that,” said Joe. “I wonder what makes the bread do that.” “Oh, it ain’t the bread, so much,” said Tom; “I reckon it’s mostly what they say over it before they start it out.” “But they don’t say anything over it,” said Huck. “I’ve seen ‘em and they don’t.” “Well, that’s funny,” said Tom. “But maybe they say it to themselves. Of they do. Anybody might know that.” The other boys agreed that there was reason in what Tom said, because an ignorant lump of bread, uninstructed by an incantation, could not be expected to act very intelligently when sent upon an errand of such gravity.”
“Tom se decía que, después de todo, el mundo no era un páramo. Había descubierto, sin darse cuenta, uno de los principios fundamentales de la conducta humana, a saber: que para que alguien, hombre o muchacho, anhele alguna cosa, sólo es necesario hacerla difícil de conseguir. Si hubiera sido un eximio y agudo filósofo, como el autor de este libro, hubiera comprendido entonces que el trabajo consiste en lo que estamos obligados a hacer, sea lo que sea, y que el juego consiste en aquello a lo que no se nos obliga.”
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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.