Inspirational Quotes by Fyodor Dostoevsky

“Fear of aesthetics is the first sign of powerlessness”

“أنه في المقال قسم الناس إلى نوعين : مخلوق "عادي" ومخلوق "غير عادي". وفرض على أولئك أن يعيشوا مطيعين دون أن يعطيهم الحق في تجاوز القانون و خرقه لأنهم كمان ترى مخلوقات عادية, أما الآخرون فإن لهم الحق في إرتكاب الجرائم وخرق كل قانون لمجرد كونهم مخلوقات غير عادية! أليست هذه فكرتك ؟ أم تراني مخطئاً ؟”

“What if man is not really a scoundrel, man in general, I mean, the whole race of mankind-then all the rest is prejudice, simply artificial terrors and there are no barriers and it's all as it should be.”

“I know you'll probably get angry with me for that, shout, stamp your feet: "speak just for yourself and your miseries in the underground, and don't go saying 'we all.'" Excuse me, gentleman, but I am not justifying myself with this allishness. As far as I myself am concerned, I have merely carried to an extreme in my life what you have not dared to carry even halfway, and, what's more, you've taken your cowardice for good sense, and found comfort in thus deceiving yourselves. So that I, perhaps, come out even more "living" than you.”

“For the secret of human existence lies not only in living, but in knowing what to live for.”

“Father monks, why do you fast! Why do you expect reward in heaven for that?...No, saintly monk, you try being virtuous in the world, do good to society, without shutting yourself up in a monastery at other people's expense, and without expecting a reward up aloft for it--you'll find that a bit harder.”

“I was especially happy when, going to bed and covering myself with a blanket, I began, alone now, in the most complete solitude, with no people moving around and not a single sound from them, to re-create life in a different key.”

“Nothing in the world is harder than speaking the truth and nothing easier than flattery.”

“Can I possibly not understand myself that I'm a lost man? But--why can't I resurrect? Yes! it only takes being calculating and patient at least once in your life and--that's all! It only takes being steadfast at least once, and in an hour I can change my whole destiny!”

“I have seen a face with a thousand countenances, and a face that was but a single countenance as if held in a mould. I have seen a face whose sheen I could look through to the ugliness beneath, and a face whose sheen I had to lift to see how beautiful it was. I have seen an old face much lined with nothing, and a smooth face in which all things were graven. I know faces, because I look through the fabric my own eye weaves, and behold the reality beneath.”

“Faith does not, in the realist, spring from the miracle but the miracle from faith. If the realist once believes, then he is bound by his very realism to admit the miraculous also.”

“إنه يتفق لي كثيرا أثناء اندفاعي في الاحلام أن تستبد بي حماسة ششديدة ورغبة عارمة جامحة في خدمة الانسانية , حتى لقد ارتضي أن أن أُصلب في سبيل البشر إذا بدا هذا ضروريا في لحظة من اللحظات . ومع ذلك لو أريد لي أن أعيش يومين متتالين في غرفة واحدة مع أي إنسان , لما استطعت إن أحتمل ذلك . إنني أعرف هذا بتجربة . فمتى وجدت نفسي قرب إنسان آخر أحسست بأن شخصيته تصدم ذاتي وتجور على حريتي . إنني قادر في مدى أربع وعشرين ساعة على أن أكره أحسن إنسان :فهذا يصبح في نظري إنسانا لا يطاق لأنه مسرف في البطء في تناوله الطعام على المائدة , وهذا لأنه مصاب بزكام فهو لا ينفك يمخط . إنني أصبح عدواً للبشر متى اقتربوا مني ولو قليلاً... ولكنني لاحظت في كل مرة أنني كلما ازددت كرها للبشر أفراداً, ازدادت حرارة حبي للإنسانية جملة”

“The only gain of civilisation for mankind is the greater capacity for variety of sensations--and absolutely nothing more. And through the development of this many-sidedness man may come to finding enjoyment in bloodshed. In fact, this has already happened to him. Have you noticed that it is the most civilised gentlemen who have been the subtlest slaughterers, to whom the Attilas and Stenka Razins could not hold a candle, and if they are not so conspicuous as the Attilas and Stenka Razins it is simply because they are so often met with, are so ordinary and have become so familiar to us. In any case civilisation has made mankind if not more bloodthirsty, at least more vilely, more loathsomely bloodthirsty. In old days he saw justice in bloodshed and with his conscience at peace exterminated those he thought proper. Now we do think bloodshed abominable and yet we engage in this abomination, and with more energy than ever. Which is worse? Decide that for yourselves. They say that Cleopatra (excuse an instance from Roman history) was fond of sticking gold pins into her slave-girls' breasts and derived gratification from their screams and writhings. You will say that that was in the comparatively barbarous times; that these are barbarous times too, because also, comparatively speaking, pins are stuck in even now; that though man has now learned to see more clearly than in barbarous ages, he is still far from having learnt to act as reason and science would dictate. But yet you are fully convinced that he will be sure to learn when he gets rid of certain old bad habits, and when common sense and science have completely re-educated human nature and turned it in a normal direction. You are confident that then man will cease from INTENTIONAL error and will, so to say, be compelled not to want to set his will against his normal interests. That is not all; then, you say, science itself will teach man (though to my mind it's a superfluous luxury) that he never has really had any caprice or will of his own, and that he himself is something of the nature of a piano-key or the stop of an organ, and that there are, besides, things called the laws of nature; so that everything he does is not done by his willing it, but is done of itself, by the laws of nature. Consequently we have only to discover these laws of nature, and man will no longer have to answer for his actions and life will become exceedingly easy for him. All human actions will then, of course, be tabulated according to these laws, mathematically, like tables of logarithms up to 108,000, and entered in an index; or, better still, there would be published certain edifying works of the nature of encyclopaedic lexicons, in which everything will be so clearly calculated and explained that there will be no more incidents or adventures in the world.”

“man is a frivolous and incongruous creature, and perhaps, like a chess player, loves the process of the game, not the end of it.”

“I want peace; yes, I'd sell the whole world for a farthing, straight off, so long as I was left in peace. Is the world to go to pot, or am I to go without my tea? I say that the world may go to pot for me so long as I always get my tea. Did you know that, or not? Well, anyway, I know that I am a blackguard, a scoundrel, an egoist, a sluggard.”

“The poor girl ws keeping that student's letter as a precious treasure, and had run to fetch it, her only treasure, because she did not want me to go away without knowing that she, too, was honestly and genuinely loved; that she, too, was addressed respectfully. No doubt that letter was destined to lie in her box and lead to nothing. But none the less, I am certain that she would keep it all her life as a precious treasure, as her pride and justification, and now at such a minute she had thought of that letter and brought it with naive pride to raise herself in my eyes that I might see, that I, too, might think well of her.”

“But I'll add, that there is something at the bottom of every new human thought, every thought of genius, or even every earnest thought that springs up in any brain, which can never be communicated to others, even if one were to write volumes about it and were explaining one's idea for thirty-five years; there's something left which cannot be induced to emerge from your brain, and remains with you forever; and with it you will die, without communicating to anyone perhaps the most important of your ideas”

“إن الحب سر غامض لا يفهمه إلا الله”

“She said nothing, she only looked at me without a word. But it hurts more, it hurts more when they don't blame!”

“يبدو أن مصيري هو العمل من أجل النقود بالمعنى المُخجِل جداً للكلمة”