Inspirational Quotes by Fyodor Dostoevsky
“Why I would sell the whole world for a single kopek, just so that nobody would bother me. Should the world go to hell, or should I go without my tea now? I'll say let the world go to hell so long as I can have my tea whenever I want it.”
“There is only one salvation for you: take yourself up, and make yourself responsible for all the sins of men. For indeed it is so, my friend, and the moment you make yourself sincerely responsible for everything and everyone, you will see at once that it is really so, that it is you who are guilty on behalf of all and for all. Whereas by shifting your own laziness and powerlessness onto others, you will end by sharing in Satan's pride and murmuring against God. The Brothers Karamazov Book VI - The Russian Monk, Chapter 3 - Conversations and Exhortations of Father Zosima.”
topics: community , eastern-orthodox , god , holiness , orthodox , piety , religion , russia , the-brothers-karamazov
“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.”
“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.”
“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 [...]”
“إن هذا التعود على الشرّ هو ما ينبغي أن نحزن لهـ .”
“I tell Thee that man is tormented by no greater anxiety than to find someone quickly to whom he can hand over that gift of freedom with which the ill-fated creatures is born. But only one who can appease their conscience can take over their freedom […] Instead of taking men's freedom from them, Thou didst make it greater than ever! Didst Thou forget that man prefers peace, and even death, to freedom of choice in the knowledge of good and evil?”
“Where did the light come from on the first day?”
“Love it, regardless of logic as you say. It must be regardless of logic.”
“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
“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.”
“What terrible tragedies realism inflicts on people,”
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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.