Inspirational Quotes by Fyodor Dostoevsky

“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.”

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

“Love, she felt, ought to come all at once, with great thunderclaps and flashes of lightning; it was like a storm bursting upon life from the sky, uprooting it, overwhelming the will, and sweeping the heart into the abyss. It did not occur to her that rain forms puddles on a flat roof when the drainpipes are clogged, and she would have continued to feel secure if she had not suddenly discovered a crack in the wall.”

“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.”

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

“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.”

“Between Countess Nordston and Levin there had been established those relations, not infrequent in society, in which two persons, while ostensibly remaining on friendly terms, are contemptuous of each other to such a degree that they cannot even treat each other seriously and cannot even insult each one another.”

“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.”

“Perhaps she would have liked to confide all these things to someone. But how tell an undefinable uneasiness, variable as the clouds, unstable as the winds? Words failed her—the opportunity, the courage.”

“How can you tell a man there’s nothing to do? I can’t imagine a situation in which there could ever be nothing to do! Do it for mankind and don’t worry about the rest. There’s so much to do that a lifetime won’t be enough, if you look around attentively.”

“Oh, if somewhere there were a being strong and handsome, a valiant heart, passionate and sensitive at once, a poet's spirit in an angel's form, a lyre with strings of steel, sounding sweet-sad epithalamiums to the heavens, then why should she not find that being?”

“إن في الحياة ساعاتٌ، كأنها تتجمع فيها آلام سنين طويلة برمتها”

“Her face was brilliant and glowing; but this glow was not one of brightness; it suggested the fearful glow of a conflagration in the midst of a dark night.”

“Every notary carries about inside him the debris of a poet.”

“He felt all the torment of his and her position, all the difficulties they were surrounded by in consequence of their station in life, which exposed them to the eyes of the whole world, obliged them to hide their love, to lie and deceive, and again to lie and deceive, to scheme and constantly think about others while the passion that bound them was so strong that they both forgot everything but their love.”

“I don’t understand how, up to now, an atheist could know there is no God and not kill himself at once. To recognize that there is no God, and not to recognize at the same time that you have become God, is an absurdity, otherwise you must necessarily kill yourself. Once you recognize it, you are king, and you will not kill yourself but will live in the chiefest glory. But one, the one who is first, must necessarily kill himself, otherwise who will begin and prove it? It is I who will necessarily kill myself in order to begin and prove it. I am still God against my will, and I am unhappy, because it is my duty to proclaim self-will. Everyone is unhappy, because everyone is afraid to proclaim self-will. That is why man has been so unhappy and poor up to now, because he was afraid to proclaim the chief point of self-will and was self-willed only on the margins, like a schoolboy. I am terribly unhappy, because I am terribly afraid. Fear is man’s curse … But I will proclaim self-will, it is my duty to believe that I do not believe. I will begin, and end, and open the door. And save. Only this one thing will save all men and in the next generation transform them physically; for in the present physical aspect, so far as I have thought, it is in no way possible for man to be without the former God. For three years I have been searching for the attribute of my divinity, and I have found it: the attribute of my divinity is—Self-will! That is all, by which I can show in the main point my insubordination and my new fearsome freedom. For it is very fearsome. I kill myself to show my insubordination and my new fearsome freedom.” Dostoevsky, Fyodor (2010-05-06). Demons (Vintage Classics) (p. 619). Random House, Inc.. Kindle Edition.”

“But do you understand, I cry to him, do you understand that if you have the guillotine in the forefront, and with such glee, it's for the sole reason that cutting heads off is the easiest thing, and having an idea is difficult!”

“I tell you, sir, it's very easy for Pyotr Stepanovich to live in the world, because he imagines a man and then lives with him the way he imagined him.”

“Here it is. Let's say you're married, you love your wife, but you're attracted by another woman.' 'Excuse me, but I absolutely cannot understand how after eating my fill here I could go past a bakery and steal a roll.”

“A little muzhik was working on the railroad, mumbling in his beard. And the candle by which she had read the book that was filled with fears, with deceptions, with anguish, and with evil, flared up with greater brightness than she had ever known, revealing to her all that before was in darkness, then flickered, grew faint, and went out forever.”