Inspirational Quotes by Fyodor Dostoevsky

“El oro del entendimiento anda en España por los suelos, pero no deja de ser oro, por más que los poetas, como los Indios, vendan por una migaja de pan los puñados del oro de su corazón y de su frente.”

“En países semicivilizados, de comunicación poco libre, la difusión de una nueva sub-raza sería un proceso lentísimo. Tan pronto como los rasgos característicos son conocidos, el principio, como lo he llamado yo, de la selección inconsciente tenderá siempre -quizá más en un período que en otro, según que la raza esté más o menos de moda; quizá más en una comarca que en otra, según el estado de civilización de los habitantes- a aumentar lentamente los rasgos característicos de la raza, cualesquiera que sean éstos.”

“–Adoro los placeres sencillos –dijo lord Henry–. Son el último refugio de las almas complicadas.”

“He was one of those men whom success never mollified, whose enjoyment of a point gained always demanded some hoarse note of triumph from his own trumpet.”

“If you pardon all the evil done to you, you encourage others to do you evil! If you give your cloak to him who steals your coat, how long will it be, before your shirt and trousers will go also?”

“My dear Mina, why are men so noble when we women are so little worthy of them? Here was I almost making fun of this great hearted, true gentleman. I burst into tears, I am afraid, my dear, you will think this a very sloppy letter in more ways than one, and I really felt very badly. Why can’t they let a girl marry three men, or as many as want her, and save all this trouble?”

“Chapter 44 — The Coming Election       The very greatness of Mr Melmotte’s popularity, the extent of the admiration which was accorded by the public at large to his commercial enterprise and financial sagacity, created a peculiar bitterness in the opposition that was organized against him at Westminster. As the high mountains are intersected by deep valleys, as puritanism in one age begets infidelity in the next, as in many countries the thickness of the winter’s ice will be in proportion to the number of the summer musquitoes, so was the keenness of the hostility displayed on this occasion in proportion to the warmth of the support which was manifested. As the great man was praised, so also was he abused. As he was a demi-god to some, so was he a fiend to others. And indeed there was hardly any other way in which it was possible to carry on the contest against him. From the moment in which Mr Melmotte had declared his purpose of standing for Westminster in the Conservative interest, an attempt was made to drive him down the throats of the electors by clamorous assertions of his unprecedented commercial greatness.”

“Throughout the world, the more wrong a man does, the more indignant is he at wrong done to him.”

“He was overwhelmed by the beauty of the world. Beside that nothing seemed to matter.”

“A schoolfellow of Vronsky’s and of the same age, he was a general and was expecting a command, which might have influence on the course of political events; while Vronsky, independent and brilliant and beloved by a charming woman though he was, was simply a cavalry captain who was readily allowed to be as independent as ever he liked.”

“The poet replied: “I always am, my child; you will be too in a few years. While one is climbing the ladder, one sees the top and feels hopeful; but when one has reached that summit, one sees the descent and the end which is death. It is slow work ascending, but one descends rapidly. At your age one is joyous; one hopes for many things which never come to pass. At mine, one expects nothing but death.”

“the only painting worth anything was done with the heart.”

“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.”

“On the twelfth of June, 1812, the forces of Western Europe crossed the Russian frontier and war began, that is, an event took place opposed to human reason and to human nature. Millions of men perpetrated against one another such innumerable crimes, frauds, treacheries, thefts, forgeries, issues of false money, burglaries, incendiarisms, and murders as in whole centuries are not recorded in the annals of all the law courts of the world, but which those who committed them did not at the time regard as being crimes.”

“no matter how much people may grieve by day, they can put up with it so long as they can sleep at night, for when the eyes are closed in slumber people forget good and ill alike; whereas my misery haunts me even in my dreams.”

“She generally gave herself very good advice, (though she very seldom followed it), and sometimes she scolded herself so severely as to bring tears into her eyes; and once she remembered trying to box her own ears for having cheated herself in a game of croquet she was playing against herself, for this curious child was very fond of pretending to be two people. ‘But it’s no use now,’ thought poor Alice, ‘to pretend to be two people! Why, there’s hardly enough of me left to make one respectable person!”

“more readily,”

“Emaux et Camees, Charpentier's Japanese-paper edition, with”

“Pero hay distancias de cuatro varas que una locomotora no podría recorrer en diez años: la distancia de la posición no se mide por kilómetros sino por inmensidades.”

“Habiendo aludido a la cuestión de la reversión, debo referirme a una afirmación hecha frecuentemente por los naturalistas, o sea, que las variedades domésticas, cuando pasan de nuevo al estado salvaje, vuelven gradual, pero invariablemente, a los caracteres de su tronco primitivo. De aquí se ha argüido que no pueden sacarse deducciones de las razas domésticas para las especies en estado natural. En vano me he esforzado en descubrir con qué hechos decisivos se ha formulado tan frecuente y tan osadamente la afirmación anterior.”