Inspirational Quotes by Fyodor Dostoevsky

“I ... having filled my life with the spiritual blessings Christianity gave me, brimful of these blessings and living by them, I, like a child, not understanding them, destroy them -- that is, I wish to destroy that by which I live.”

“What can be more precious than life? Nothing!”

“You pass by a little child, you pass by, spiteful, with ugly words, with wrathful heart; you may not have noticed the child, but he has seen you, and your image, unseemly and ignoble, may remain in his defenseless heart. You don’t know it, but you may have sown an evil seed in him and it may grow, and all because you were not careful before the child, because you did not foster in yourself a careful, actively benevolent love.”

“السؤال ما زال يتأكل قلبك ، ولكن الشهيد يحبّٰ أحياناً أن يسلّي نفسه باليأس ، وأنت، في يأسك، تلهي نفسك بمقالات في مجلة ، وبمناقشة في جماعة ، مع أنك لا تثق بما تجادل به بقلب متوجّع تهزأ به من الداخل .. لم تجب عن ذلك السؤال، لم تجب عن ذلك السؤال وهو حزنك الكبير لأنه يتذمّر بصخب طالباً إجابة”

“But that happiness, no doubt, was a lie invented for the despair of all desire. She now knew the smallness of the passions that art exaggerated.”

“I was seeking within myself the human being I had so long lost sight of, hoping that my passion had only been distorted but had never been completely suppressed, by the social illusion, by the dominant ideal of “concealing emotions”. I wished to shout: “I broke away from your cold and petrified world in which I was one of the wheels running noiselessly in the great machine, one of the idle wheels. I have plunged into an unknown abyss; and in this one hour of the plunge I have lived more fully than in all sheltered years in your circle. I do not belong to you anymore, I may be on the heights or in the depths, but never shall I return to the dead levels of your philistine comfort.”

“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: in consequence of their limitation they take immediate and secondary causes for primary ones, and in that way persuade themselves more quickly and easily than other people do that they have found an infallible foundation for their activity, and their minds are at ease and you know that is the chief thing.”

“to a woman all reformation, all salvation from any sort of ruin, and all moral renewal is included in love and can only show itself in that form.”

“أنا... رجل مريض... أنا إنسان خبيث. لست أملك شيئا مما يجذب أو يفتن. أحسب أنني أعاني مرضا في الكبد، على أنني لا أفهم من مرضي شيئا على الإطلاق ولا أعرف على وجه الدقة أين وجعي وأنا لا أداوي نفسي، ولا داويت نفسي في يوم من الأيام، رغم أنني أحترم الطب والأطباء. وأني من جهة أخرى أؤمن بالخرافات إلى أقصى حد، أو قولوا إنني أؤمن بها إلى الحد الذي يكفي لاحترام الطب (إنني أملك من الثقافة ما يكفي لأن لا أكون من المؤمنين بالخرافات، ولكني أؤمن بها مع ذلك). لا، لا! لئن كنت لا أداوي نفسي، أن مرد ذلك إلى خبث وشر! لا شك أنكم لا تتنازلون إلى حيث تفهمون هذا، ولكني أنا أفهمه”

“It was not you who ate the idea, but the idea that ate you.”

“Oh, if I had done nothing simply from laziness! Heavens, how I should have respected myself, then. I should have respected myself because I should at least have been capable of being lazy; there would at least have been one quality, as it were, positive in me, in which I could have believed myself. Question: What is he? Answer: A sluggard; how very pleasant it would have been to hear that of oneself! It would mean that I was positively defined, it would mean that there was something to say about me. ‘Sluggard’—why, it is a calling and vocation, it is a career. Do not jest, it is so. I should then be a member of the best club by right, and should find my occupation in continually respecting myself. I knew a gentleman who prided himself all his life on being a connoisseur of Lafitte. He considered this as his positive virtue, and never doubted himself. He died, not simply with a tranquil, but with a triumphant conscience, and he was quite right, too. Then I should have chosen a career for myself, I should have been a sluggard and a gluteton, not a simple one, but, for instance, one with sympathies for everything sublime and beautiful. How do you like that? I have long had visions of it. That ‘sublime and beautiful’ weighs heavily on my mind at forty But that is at forty; then—oh, then it would have been different! I should have found for myself a form of activity in keeping with it, to be precise, drinking to the health of everything ‘sublime and beautiful.’ I should have snatched at every opportunity to drop a tear into my glass and then to drain it to all that is ‘sublime and beautiful.’ I should then have turned everything into the sublime and the beautiful; in the nastiest, unquestionable trash, I should have sought out the sublime and the beautiful.”

“El secreto de la existencia no consiste solamente en vivir, sino en saber para que se vive.”

“ليس الفقر رذيلة،ولا الإدمان على السكر فضيلة،أنا أعرف ذلك أيضاً،ولكن البؤس رذيلة أيها السيد العزيز،البؤس رذيلة”

“O principal é não mentir. Quem mente para si mesmo e dá ouvido à sua própria mentira chega a tal extremo que não consegue ver nenhuma verdade em si ou naqueles que o rodeiam e, por conseguinte, perde completamente o respeito por si e pelos outros. (...) Quem mente a si próprio pode ser o primeiro a ofender-se. Às vezes, é tão agradável uma pessoa se ofender, não é verdade? O indivíduo sabe que ninguém o injuriou, que tudo não passa de simples invenção, que ele próprio mentiu e exagerou apenas para criar um quadro, para fazer de um grão uma montanha - sabe tudo e, no entanto, se ofende. Ofende-se a ponto se sentir prazer na ofensa e, desse modo, atinge o verdadeiro ódio...”

“I gave myself up to fruitless speculation, and was always looking for secluded places. I became particularly fond of the ruined greenhouse. I used to climb, I remember, on to the high wall, settle myself on it and sit there, a youth afflicted by such misery, solitude and grief that I would be overcome with self-pity. How I reveled in these melancholy feelings - how I adored them.”

“نعم أن تمَّحي، أن تزول من الدرب. أن تخلي الطريق للإنسان الذي تحبه والإنسان الذي تكرهه، وأن تحب حتى ذاك الذي كان عليك أن تكرهه...أن تبتعد عن طريقهما قائلاً " "هيا اذهبا، وليحرسكما الله، أما أنا فسوف....." ديمتري كارامازوف”

“إن القلب النبيل قد يحب من قبيل الشفقة”

“Kushdo qofte, edhe njeriu i vogel, nga ata qe nuk e turbullojne ujin, qe askujt s'i bien me qafe, qe rrojne me friken e perendise, por edhe me friken per veten, shkojne me mendjen te mos ngacmojne njeri se keshtu as ate vete nuk do ta ngacmojne, do ta lene te qete ne hallet e tij, nuk deshiron qe te tjeret te futin hundet ne jeten e perditshme qe ben, nuk ia ka enda te flasin ne e ka te ri apo te vjeter jelekun, ne i ka te reja apo me mballoma çizmet, nuk ia ka enda te marrin vesh te tjeret ç'eshte duke ngrene, çfare po shkruan?... E ç'te keqe paska, moj zemer, qe une, kur shoh xhadene te prishur, eci ne maje te gishtave, shkel me kujdes per te ruajtur çizmet? Pse duhet shkruar per tjetrin qe ndonjehere nuk ka para as per te pire nje gote çaj? Sikur qenka e thene dhe e vulosur qe njerezit, te gjithe sa jane, patjeter duhet te pine çaj. Po pse e udhes qenka te shohesh ne gojen e tjetrit per te ditur ç'cope eshte duke pertypur? A fyhet njeriu keshtu? Jo, shpirti im! Perse u dashka fyer tjetri kur ai s'te ngacmon?”

“إن في مقدور الإنسان أن يخبر الطفل بكل شيء. كل شيء. وكثيراً ما أذهلتني حقيقة أن الآباء لا يعرفون عن أبنائهم إلا القليل. ليس عليهم أن يخفوا عنهم الكثير لأن الأطفال حتى الصغار منهم يدركون تماماً أن الآباء يخفون عنهم أشياء كثيرة لأنهم يرونهم أصغر من أن يفهموها! إن في إمكان الأطفال أن يقدموا النصيحة في أشد الأمور أهمية. فكيف يمكن للمرء أن يخدع هذه الطيور الصغيرة العزيزة عندما يتطلعون إليه في ثقة ولطف؟ إنني أسميهم طيوراً لأنه لا يوجد في الدنيا أجمل من الطيور”

“Hypocrisy in anything whatever may deceive the cleverest and most penetrating man, but the least wide-awake of children recognizes it, and is revolted by it, however ingeniously it may be disguised.”