Inspirational Quotes by Fyodor Dostoevsky

“Just take a look around you: Blood is flowing in rivers and in such a jolly way you’d think it was champagne.”

“Reality alone justifies everything.”

“ان القلب الكريم يمكن أن يحب من قبيل الشفقة”

“I can't bear it that some man, even with a lofty heart and the highest mind, should start from the ideal of the Madonna and end with the ideal of Sodom. It's even more fearful when someone who already has the ideal of Sodom in his soul does not deny the ideal of the Madonna either, and his hear burns with it, verily, verily burns, as in his young, blameless years. No, man is broad, even too broad, I would narrow him down. Devil knows even what to make of him, that's the thing! What's shame for the mind is beauty all over for the heart. Can there be beauty in Sodom? Believe me, for the vast majority of people, that's just where beauty lies--did you know that secret? The terrible thing is that beauty is not only fearful but also mysterious. Here the devil is struggling with God, and the battlefield is the human heart. But, anyway, why kick against the pricks?”

“Oh literature is a wonderful thing, Varenka, a very wonderful thing: I discovered that from being with those people the day before yesterday. It is a profound thing. It strengthens people’s hearts and instructs them,… Literature is a picture, or rather in a certain sense both a picture and a mirror; it is an expression of emotion, a subtle form of criticism, a didactic lesson and a document…”

“In the first place I spent most of my time at home, reading. I tried to stifle all that was continually seething within me by means of external impressions. And the only external means I had was reading. Reading, of course, was a great help--exciting me, giving me pleasure and pain. But at times it bored me fearfully. One longed for movement in spite of everything, and I plunged all at once into dark, underground, loathsome vice of the pettiest kind. My wretched passions were acute, smarting, from my continual, sickly irritability I had hysterical impulses, with tears and convulsions. I had no resource except reading, that is, there was nothing in my surroundings which I could respect and which attracted me. I was overwhelmed with depression, too; I had an hysterical craving for incongruity and for contrast, and so I took to vice. I have not said all this to justify myself .... But, no! I am lying. I did want to justify myself. I make that little observation for my own benefit, gentlemen. I don't want to lie. I vowed to myself I would not.”

“Nature does not ask your permission, she has nothing to do with your wishes, and whether you like her laws or dislike them, you are bound to accept her as she is, and consequently all her conclusions.”

“Oh, I have always been proud, I always wanted all or nothing! You see it was just because I am not one who will accept half a happiness, but always wanted all”

“لماذا تخلقُ الطبيعةُ أفضلَ الناسِ لتسخرَ منهم بعدَ ذلك؟ هذا ما تعمدُ إليهِ الطبيعة: حينَ أظهرتِ البشرَ على الإنسانِ الوحيد الذي عُدَّ الإنسانَ الكاملَ في هذا العالَم، عهِدتْ إليهِ برسالةِ أنْ ينطقَ بأقوالٍ كانتْ سببًا في سفحِ دماءٍ بلغتْ مِنَ الغزارةِ أنها لو سُفحتْ مرّةً واحدةً لخنقتِ الإنسانية! إنها لسعادةٌ أنْ أموت! ذلكَ أنّني إذا لم أمتْ فقد يُطلقُ لساني كذبةً رهيبةً بدافعٍ مِنَ الطبيعة!... أنا لم أُفسدْ أحدًا.. لقد أردتُ أنْ أحيا لسعادةِ الناسِ جميعًا... أردتُ أنْ أحيا لاكتشافِ الحقيقةِ ونشرها... فماذا كانتِ النتيجة؟ لا شيء! كانتِ النتيجةُ أنكم تحتقرونني. هذا دليلٌ على أنّني غبيٌّ أحمق، على أنّني امرؤٌ لاخيرَ فيهِ ولا فائدةَ منه، وعلى أنّني قد آنَ لي أنْ أزول! وحينَ أزول، فلن أُخلفَ ورائي أيّة ذكرى: لن أتركَ أيَّ صدى، لن أتركَ أيََ أثر، لن أتركَ أيَّ عمل! لم أنشرْ أيَّ رأي، لم أُذِعْ أيّة قناعة! لا تضحكوا من غبيٍّ أحمق! انسَوه! انسَوا كلَّ شيء! أرجوكم أنْ تنسَوا! لاتكونوا قساةً!”

“I was overpowered by the mere sensation of that dream and it alone survived in my sorely wounded heart.”

“شعر بأنه لا يستطيع بعد هذه اللحظة أن يلتقي بأي كان ، و أن لقاء الناس يؤلمه و يزعجه”

“I am a wicked man... But do you know, gentlemen, what was the main point about my wickedness? The whole thing, precisely was, the greatest nastiness precisely lay in my being shamefully conscious every moment, even in moments of the greatest bile, that I was not only not a wicked man but was not even an embittered man, that I was simply frightening sparrows in vain, and pleasing myself with it.”

“And a , undoubted grief is sometimes capable of making a solid and steadfast man even out of a phenomenally light-minded one, if only for a short time; moreover, real and true grief has sometimes even made fools more intelligent, also only for a time, of course; grief has this property.”

“You know the direct, legitimate fruit of consciousness is inertia, that is, conscious sitting-with-the-hands-folded. I have referred to this already. I repeat, I repeat with emphasis: all “direct” persons and men of action are active just because they are stupid and limited. How explain that? I will tell you:”

“بالطبع ساعدتني القراءة كثيراً ، وحركت مُخيلتي، وأمدتني بالمسرات والآلام، لكنها كانت في لحظات أخرى، تزعجني حد الموت”

“At that time I was only twenty-four years old. My life then was already gloomy, disorderly, and solitary to the point of savagery.”

“The essence of religious feeling does not come under any sort of reasoning or atheism, and has nothing to do with any crimes or misdemeanors. There is something else here, and there will always be something else - something that the atheists will for ever slur over; they will always be talking of something else.”

“I don't know how to be myself. It's like I'm permanently outside myself. Like, like you could push your hands straight through me if you wanted to. And I can see the type of man I want to be versus the type of man I actually am and I know that I'm doing it but I'm incapable of what needs to be done. I'm like Pinocchio, a wooden boy. Not a real boy. And it kills me.”

“If the wickedness of people arouses indignation and insurmountable grief in you, to the point that you desire to revenge yourself upon the wicked, fear that feeling most of all; go at once and seek torments for yourself, as if you yourself were guilty of their wickedness. Take these torments upon yourself and suffer them, and your heart will be eased, and you will understand that you, too, are guilty, for you might have shone to the wicked, even like the only sinless One, but you did not. If you had shone, your light would have lighted the way for others, and the one who did wickedness would perhaps not have done so in your light. And even if you do shine, but see that people are not saved even with your light, remain steadfast, and do not doubt the power of the heavenly light; believe that if they are not saved now, they will be saved later. And if they are not saved, their sons will be saved, for your light will not die, even when you are dead. The righteous man departs, but his light remains. People are always saved after the death of him who saved them. The generation of men does not welcome its prophets and kills them, but men love their martyrs and venerate those they have tortured to death. Your work is for the whole, your deed is for the future. Never seek a reward, for great is your reward on earth without that: your spiritual joy, which only the righteous obtain. Nor should you fear the noble and powerful, but be wise and ever gracious. Know measure, know the time, learn these things. When you are alone, pray. Love to throw yourself down on the earth and kiss it. Kiss the earth and love it, tirelessly, insatiable, love all men, love all things, seek this rapture and ecstasy. Water the earth with the tears of your joy, and love those tears. Do not be ashamed of this ecstasy, treasure it, for it is a gift from God, a great gift, and it is not given to many, but to those who are chosen.”

“Why, the isolation that prevails everywhere, above all in our age—it has not fully developed, it has not reached its limit yet. For every one strives to keep his individuality as apart as possible, wishes to secure the greatest possible fullness of life for himself; but meantime all his efforts result not in attaining fullness of life but self-destruction, for instead of self-realization he ends by arriving at complete solitude. All mankind in our age have split up into units, they all keep apart, each in his own groove; each one holds aloof, hides himself and hides what he has, from the rest, and he ends by being repelled by others and repelling them. He heaps up riches by himself and thinks, ‘How strong I am now and how secure,’ and in his madness he does not understand that the more he heaps up, the more he sinks into self-destructive impotence. For he is accustomed to rely upon himself alone and to cut himself off from the whole; he has trained himself not to believe in the help of others, in men and in humanity, and only trembles for fear he should lose his money and the privileges that he has won for himself. Everywhere in these days men have, in their mockery, ceased to understand that the true security is to be found in social solidarity rather than in isolated individual effort. But this terrible individualism must inevitably have an end, and all will suddenly understand how unnaturally they are separated from one another. It will be the spirit of the time, and people will marvel that they have sat so long in darkness without seeing the light.”