Inspirational Quotes by Fyodor Dostoevsky
“And in fact you're not like everyone else: you weren't ashamed just now to confess bad and even ridiculous things about yourself. Who would confess such things nowadays? No one, and people have even stopped feeling any need for self-judgment.”
“Have you noticed how dogs sniff at one another when they meet? It seems to be their nature. - Yes; it's a funny habit. - No, it's not funny; you are wrong there. There's nothing funny in nature, however funny it may seem to man. If dogs could reason and criticize us they'd be sure to find just as much that would be funny to them, if not far more, in the social relations of men, their masters -far more, I think. I am more convinced that there is far more foolishness among us.”
“A long while yet will you keep that great mother's grief. But it will turn in the end into quiet joy, and your bitter tears will be only tears of tender sorrow that purifies the heart and delivers it from sin.”
topics: grief
“if [God] doesn't exist, man is the chief of the earth, of the universe. Magnificent! Only how is he going to be good without God?”
topics: ethics
“I feel pity for him, and that is a poor sign of love.”
“And that we are all responsible to all for all, apart from our own sins, you were quite right in thinking that, and it is wonderful how you could comprehend it in all its significance at once. And in very truth, so soon as men understand that, the Kingdom of Heaven will be for them not a dream, but a living reality.”
topics: responsibility
“Where did the light come from on the first day?”
“Every day and every hour, every minute, walk round yourself and watch yourself, and see that your image is a seemly one. 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 defenceless 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. Brothers, love is a teacher; but one must know how to acquire it, for it is hard to acquire, it is dearly bought, it is won slowly by long labour. For we must love not only occasionally, for a moment, but for ever. Everyone can love occasionally, even the wicked can.”
“Do not be afraid of anything, never be afraid, and do not grieve. Just let repentance not slacken in you, and God will forgive everything. There is not and cannot be in the whole world such a sin that the Lord will not forgive one who truly repents of it. A man even cannot commit so great a sin as would exhaust God’s boundless love. How could there be a sin that exceeds God’s love? Only take care that you repent without ceasing, and chase away fear altogether. Believe that God loves you so as you cannot conceive of it; even with your sin and in your sin he loves you. And there is more joy in heaven over one repentant sinner than over ten righteous men4—that was said long ago. Go, then, and do not be afraid. Do not be upset with people, do not take offense at their wrongs. Forgive the dead man in your heart for all the harm he did you; be reconciled with him truly. If you are repentant, it means that you love. And if you love, you already belong to God … With love everything is bought, everything is saved. If even I, a sinful man, just like you, was moved to tenderness and felt pity for you, how much more will God be. Love is such a priceless treasure that you can buy the whole world with it, and redeem not only your own but other people’s sins. Go, and do not be afraid.”
“Brother, these last two months I've found in myself a new man. A new man has risen up in me. He was hidden in me, but would never have come to the surface, if it hadn't been for this blow from heaven. I am afraid! And what do I care if I spend twenty years in the mines, breaking ore with a hammer? I am not a bit afraid of that- it's something else I am afraid of now: that that new man may leave me. Even there, in the mines, underground, I may find a human heart in another convict and murderer by my side, and I may make friends with him, for even there one may live and love and suffer. One may thaw and revive a frozen heart in that convict, one may wait upon him for years, and at last bring up from the dark depths a lofty soul, a feeling, suffering creature; one may bring forth an angel, create a hero! There are so many of them, hundreds of them, and we are all to blame for them.”
“My God, but what do I care about the laws of nature and arithmetic if for some reason these laws and two times two is four are not to my liking? To be sure, I won't break through such a wall with my forehead if I really have not got strength to do it, but neither will I be reconciled with it simply because I have a stone wall here and have not got strength enough.”
“А в самом деле: вот я теперь уж от себя задаю один праздный вопрос: что лучше — дешёвое ли счастие или возвышенные страдания? Ну-ка, что лучше?”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky ,
from Записки из подполья
“أن الإنسان الطبيعي الحقيقي ينظر إلى انتقامه على أنه عدل ونقاء وبساطة، مدفوعاً إلى ذلك بحمقه الأصيل، بينما لا نجد الفأر المدرك لنفسه إدراكاً حاداً يفعل ذلك، لأنه لا يؤمن بوجود ذرة من العدالة في ذلك.”
topics: الانتقام
“ولكني أكرر للمرة المائة أن هنالك حالة واحدة، واحدة فقط، يرغب فيها الانسان رغبة مدركة عامدة فيما يضره، وفيما هو الحماقة بعينها – لأنه، ببساطة، يريد أن يمتلك الحق في أن يرغب لنفسه حتى حين يكون من الحماقة جداً أن يرغب فيما هو معقول في حين أن ذلك غير مفروض عليه.”
“But yet I am firmly persuaded that a great deal of consciousness, every sort of consciousness, in fact, is a disease.”
“I could get used to anything-that is, not really get used, but somehow voluntarily consent to endure it”
“A wise man can't seriously make himself anything, only a fool makes himself anything.”
topics: wisdom
“Man loves to construct and lay down roads, no question about it. But why is he so passionately fond of destruction and chaos? [...] Isn't man so passionately fond of destruction and chaos (and there's no disputing that he's sometimes very fond of them, that really is the case) that he himself instinctively fears achieving his goal and completing the building in the course of erection? How do you know - perhaps he only likes the building from a distance and not at all at close quarters; perhaps he only likes building it and not living in it [...]”
“he seemed to be trying to find his way somewhere, but had forgotten where.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky ,
from Crime and Punishment
Group of Brands
© 2026 Bibleportal.com All rights reserved.
Fyodor Mikhaylovich Dostoyevsky was a Russian writer, essayist and philosopher, perhaps most recognized today for his novels Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov.
Dostoyevsky's literary output explores human psychology in the troubled political, social and spiritual context of 19th-century Russian society. Considered by many as a founder or precursor of 20th-century existentialism, his Notes from Underground (1864), written in the embittered voice of the anonymous "underground man", was called by Walter Kaufmann the "best overture for existentialism ever written."
His tombstone reads "Verily, Verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit." from John 12:24, which is also the epigraph of his final novel, The Brothers Karamazov.