Inspirational Quotes by Fyodor Dostoevsky

“Yes, I suppose so," answered Anna, as though wondering at the boldness of his question; but the irrepressible, quivering brilliance of her eyes and her smile set him on fire as she said it.”

“Love..." she repeated slowly, in a musing voice, and suddenly, while disentangling the lace, she added: "The reason I dislike this word because it means such a great deal to me, far more than you can understand.”

“The hours go by without my knowing it. Sitting there I'm wandering in countries I can see every detail of--I'm playing a role in the story I'm reading. I actually feel I'm the characters--I live and breathe them.”

“At last she sighed. "But the most wretched thing — is it not? — is to drag out, as I do, a useless existence. If our pains were only of some use to someone, we should find consolation in the thought of the sacrifice.”

“Po ç'pune ke ti, mor zoteri, me çizmet e mia te shqyera dhe me berrylat e mi te grisur?”

“While there is still time, I hasten to protect myself, and so I renounce the higher harmony altogether. It's not worth the tears of that one tortured child who beat itself on the breast with its little fist and prayed in its stinking outhouse, with its unexpiated tears to 'dear, kind God'! It's not worth it, because those tears are unatoned for. They must be atoned for, or there can be no harmony... I don't want harmony. From love for humanity I don't want it. I would rather be left with the unavenged suffering. I would rather remain with my unavenged suffering and unsatisfied indignation, even if I were wrong. Besides, too high a price is asked for harmony; it's beyond our means to pay so much to enter on it. And so I hasten to give back my entrance ticket, and if I am an honest man I am bound to give it back as soon as possible. And that I am doing. It's not God that I don't accept, Alyosha, only I most respectfully return him the ticket.”

“لماذا تبدو لهم فعلتي شاذة إلى هذا الحد؟ ألا انها جريمة؟ ماذا تعني كلمة جريمة؟ إن ضميري مرتاح. صحيح أن جريمة قد وقعت. صحيح أن نص القانون قد اخترق وأن دما قد سفك. فإذا كان الأمر أمر تقيد بنص القانون فأقطعوا رأسي ولنسكت ! ولكن يجب أن نذكر في هذه الحالة أن كثيرا من العظماء الذين احسنوا إلى الإنسانية ولم يكونوا قد ورثوا السلطة وراثة وإنما استولوا عليها إستيلاء. كان ينبغي أن تقطع رءوسهم منذ خطوا خطواتهم الأولى. أن الفرق الوحيد بين هؤلاء وبيني هو إنهم قد احتملوا ثقل أفعالهم فكان ذلك مبررا لهم، اما انا فلم أقدر على الصمود إذا كان لا يحق لي ان اجيز لنفسي القيام بتلك المحاولة.”

“Thus a man will sometimes suffer half an hour of mortal fear with a robber, but once the knife is finally at his throat, even fear vanishes.”

“As often happens between men who have chosen different pursuits, each, while in argument justifying the other's activity, despised it in the depth of his heart.”

“One day is enough for a man to know all happiness. My dear ones, why do we quarrel, try to outshine each other and keep grudges against each other? Let's go straight into the garden, walk and play there, love, appreciate each other and glorify life.”

“Love is a holy mystery and ought to be hidden from all other eyes, whatever happens. That makes it holier and better. They respect one another more, and much is built on respect. And if once there has been love, if they have been married for love, why should love pass away? Surely one can keep it! It is rare that one cannot keep it. And if the husband is kind and straightforward, why should not love last? The first phase of married love will pass, it is true, but then there will come a love that is better still. Then there will be the union of souls, they will have everything in common, there will be no secrets between them. And once they have children, the most difficult times will seem to them happy, so long as there is love and courage. Even toil will be a joy, you may deny yourself bread for your children and even that will be a joy, They will love you for it afterwards; so you are laying by for your future. As the children grow up you feel that you are an example, a support for them; that even after you die your children will always keep your thoughts and feelings, because they have received them from you, they will take on your semblance and likeness. So you see this is a great duty.”

“To kill for murder is an immeasurably greater evil than the actual crime itself. Judicial murder is immeasurably more horrible than one committed by a robber. Someone killed by a robber, knifed at night in forest or somewhere, certainly keeps hoping for a rescue right up to the last second. There have been instances of people whose throats have been cut still hoping for rescue right up to the last second. There have been instances of people whose throats have been cut still hoping, or running away, or pleading for their lives. But all this final hope, which makes dying ten times easier is taken away by that certain; the sentence is pronounced and the whole agony resides in the fact that there’s no escape. There is no greater torture in the world than that. Fetch a soldier and stand him right in front of a cannon during a battle and fire at him, he’ll go on hoping; but read out a certain death sentence to that same soldier and he’ll go off his head or bust into tears. Who can say that human nature can bear such a thing like that without going mad? Why this disgusting pointless, unnecessary mockery? Perhaps there exists a man who has had his sentence read out to him and been allowed to suffer before being told: “Be off, you’ve been pardoned.” That man could tell you perhaps. Christ himself spoke of such agony and terror. No, a man should not be treated so!”

“Art thou like me, child of my darkest heart? And dost thou think my untamed thoughts and speak my vast language?” “Yea, we are twin brothers, O, Night; for thou revealest space and I reveal my soul.”

“Life had stepped into the place of theory and something quite different would work itself out in his mind.”

“Lere pastaj qe ka dhe jo pak pasunare qe s'i pelqen te degjojne ankimet me ze te larte te varfanjakeve. Se, sigurisht, i shqetesojne, i bezdisin me ankesat pa fund. Po, moj shpirt, varferia kurdohere e bezdisshme eshte. Ja ç'eshte, Varenjka. Renkimet e te uriturve, klithmat e zemerplasurve u prishin gjumin ca zoterinjve.”

“Money is the honey of humanity.”

“راح يتقدم في طريقه دون أن يبصر شيئاً مما حوله”

“How oft the warmth of the sun above Makes a pretty young girl dream of love.”

“وكان يذهلني كون آباء الأطفال يخفون حقائق الحياة عن أولادهم، مع أن الواجب يقضي بأن لايخفي الأهل حقائق الحياة عن أطفالهم، لمجرد أنهم يرون هؤلاء الأطفال أصغر من أن يدركوا هذه الأشياء. وقد تبين لي أن في وسع الأطفال أن يوجهوا النصح في كثير من المشاكل الهامة. كيف يستطيع الإنسان أن يخدع هذه العصافير الصغيرة الحبيبة حينما ينظرون إليه بثقة وإيناس ؟”

“And how can one love two at once? With two different kinds of love? That’s interesting . . . poor idiot”