Inspirational Quotes by Fyodor Dostoevsky

“Remember, too, every day, and whenever you can, repeat to yourself, "Lord, have mercy on all who appear before Thee today." For every hour and every moment thousands of men leave life on this earth, and their souls appear before God. And how many of them depart in solitude, unknown, sad, dejected that no one mourns for them or even knows whether they have lived or not!”

“...a friend of mankind with shaky moral foundation is a cannibal of mankind, to say nothing of his vainglory; insult the vainglory of one of these numberless friends of mankind, and he is ready at once to set fire to the four corners of the world out of petty vengence”

“Let us become servants in order to be leaders.”

“وإنما أنا لقيت المشوشين: هكذا يجب أن يسموا. أناس من كل نوع، لا يستطيع المرء حتى أن يرى رؤية واضحة من هم. بينهم كبار وصغار، وبينهم حمقى وعلماء، وبينهم حتى أفراد من عامة الشعب. وهم جميعا مشوشون إنهم يقضون حياتهم كلها في القراءة والاستدلال والتفكير، وقد امتلأت نفوسهم افتتانا بالكتب، ولكنهم يظلون دائما في الشك، ولا يستطعيون أن يعزموا أمرهم على شيء. منهم من تبعثروا تبعثرا تاما فأصبحوا لا يلاحظون أنفسهم، ومنهم من جمدوا فكانوا كالصخرعلى امتلاء قلوبهم بالأحلام، ومنهم خفاف لا يحسون ولا يكترثون ولا يهمهم إلا أن يطلقوا السخريات تلو السخريات، ومنهم من لا يقطفون من الكتب إلا الزهرةولكنهم يقطفون الزهرة التي يريدون ثم يظلون مشوشين لا يستقرون على حال”

“And then there's another snag you keep coming across: such decent and sensible people keep appearing in life, such wise men, and such lovers of the human race who, throughout their lives, set themselves the very task of conducting themselves as properly and sensibly as possible, as it were to enlighten their neighbors for the very purpose of proving to them that it is really possible to live decently and sensibly on this earth. And so?It is well known that, sooner or later, towards the ends of their lives, many of these people have betrayed themselves by committing some ludicrous act or another, at times even of the most indecent sort.”

“I will tell you another thing that would be better, and that is, if I myself believe even an iota of what I have just written. I swear to you, gentlemen, that I do not really believe one thing, not even one word, of what I have just written. That is, I believe it, perhaps, but at the same time, I feel suspect that I am lying myself blue in the face.”

“I hated them horribly, though perhaps I was worse than any of them. They repaid me in the same way, and did not conceal their aversion for me. But by then I did not desire their affection: on the contrary, I continually longed for their humiliation.”

“You long for life and try to settle the problems of life by a logical tangle. And how tiresome, how insolent your outbursts are, and at the same time, how scared you are! You talk nonsense and are pleased with it; you say imprudent things and are constantly afraid of them and apologizing for them. You declare that you are afraid of nothing and at the same time try to ingratiate yourself with us. You declare that you are gnashing your teeth and at the same time you try to be witty so as to amuse us. You know that your witticisms are not witty, but you are evidently well satisfied with their literary value. You may perhaps really have suffered, but you have no respect whatsoever for your own suffering. You may be truthful in what you have said but you have no modesty; out of the pettiest vanity you bring your truth to public exposure, to the market place, to ignominity.”

“For the whole world to vanish into thin air, or for me not to drink my tea? I say, let the world perish if I can always drink my tea.”

“İnsan,gelip geçici heveseleri olan,tutarsız bir varlıktır ve tıpkı satranç oyuncuları gibi hedefe ulaşmayı değilde hedefe giden yolları daha çok sever. Emin olamayız elbette,ama insanın ulaşmak için çabaladığı şey, hedefe giden bu yol olabilir;o da hayatın ta kendisidir zaten. Aslına bakılırsa hedef,iki kere iki dörttür yani bir formüldür; ama bu formül hayatın değil,ölümün başlangıcıdır. İnsan,daima iki kere ikinin dört etmesinden az da olsa bir korku duymuştur;tıpkı benim duyduğum gibi. İnsanın uğruna denizler aştığı,hayatını tükettiği hedefi iki kere iki dörttür; ama öte yandan insanın korkusu bu hedefe ulaşmaktır. Çünkü ulaştığı an hedefsiz kalacağının bilincindedir... İnsan,hedefe ilerlemeyi sever ulaşmayı değil; şüphesiz çok gülünç bir durumdur bu. İşin en hoş tarafı insanın daha doğduğunda gülünç olmasındadır. İki kere iki dört formülü, yine de dayanılmaz şey doğrusu. Bana kalırsa iki kere iki dört, büyük bir küstahlıktır ve etrafa tükürükler saçan,elleri belinde,yol kesen bir külhan beyinin ta kendisidir. İki kere ikinin mükemmelliğine inanıyorum; fakat ondan daha üstün olduğuna inandığım şey, iki kere ikinin beş etmesidir.' Yeraltından Notlar - Dostoyevski”

“ويمثل اليأس أقصى درجات الاستمتاع، خاصة حين يدرك الإنسان تماماً أنه في موقف ميئوس منه”

“إن الانسان يميل إلى إنشاء الطرق والخلق والابتكار، وهذه حقيقة لا جدال فيها، ولكن لماذا يملك مثل هذا الميل والاندفاع الشديد إلى الدمار والفوضى أيضاً؟ هلا أجبتموني عن ذلك؟ بيد أنني أريد أن أقول بعض الأمور عن هذا بنفسي. أفلا يكون ذلك لأن الانسان يحب الفوضى والدمار؟ ( ولا جدال في أنه يحبهما أحياناً) لأنه يخشى خشية فطرية من حصوله على هدفه ومن اكماله للشيء الذي يقوم ببنائه؟ ومن يعلم؟ فربما يحب الانسان ذلك البناء إذا كان بعيداً عنه ولا يحبه إذا كان قريب التحقيق”

“And with love one can live even without happiness.”

“Another circumstance, too, worried me in those days: that there was no one like me and I was unlike anyone else. "I am alone and they are everyone," I thought–and pondered.”

“L'amour, c'est le droit que l'on donne à l'autre de nous persécuter.”

“You see, gentlemen, reason is an excellent thing, there's no disputing that, but reason is nothing but reason and satisfies only the rational side of man's nature, while will is a manifestation of the whole life, that is, of the whole human life including reason and all the impulses. And although our life, in this manifestation of it, is often worthless, yet it is life and not simply extracting square roots. Here I, for instance, quite naturally want to live, in order to satisfy all my capacities for life, and not simply my capacity for reasoning, that is, not simply one twentieth of my capacity for life. What does reason know? Reason only knows what it has succeeded in learning (some things, perhaps, it will never learn; this is a poor comfort, but why not say so frankly?) and human nature acts as a whole, with everything that is in it, consciously or unconsciously, and, even if it goes wrong, it lives.”

“Tyranny is a habit; it may develop, and it does develop at last, into a disease. I maintain that the very best of men may be coarsened and hardened into a brute by habit. Blood and power intoxicate; coarseness and depravity are developed; the mind and the heart are tolerant of the most abnormal things, till at last they come to relish them. The man and the citizen is lost for ever in the tyrant, and the return to human dignity, to repentance and regeneration becomes almost impossible.”

“There are some people about whom it is difficult to say anything which would describe them immediately and fully in their most typical and characteristic aspects; these are the people who are usually called "ordinary" and accounted as "the majority," and who actually do make up the great majority of society. In their novels and stories writers most often try to choose and present vividly and artistically social types which are extremely seldom encountered in real life, and which are nevertheless more real than real life itself. Podkolyosin, viewed as a type, in perhaps exaggerated, but he is hardly unknown. How many clever people having learned from Gogol about Podkolyosin at once discover that great numbers of their friends bear a terrific resemblance to Podkolyosin. They knew before Gogol that their friends were like Podkolyosin, except they did not know yet that that was their name... Nevertheless the question remains before us: what is the novelist to do with the absolutely "ordinary" people, and how can he present them to readers so that they are at all interesting? To leave them out of a story completely is not possible, because ordinary people are at every moment, by and large, the necessary links in the chain of human affairs; leaving them out, therefore, means to destroy credibility. To fill a novel entirely with types or, simply for the sake of interest, strange and unheard-of people, would be improbable and most likely not even interesting. In our opinion the writer must try to find interesting and informative touches even among commonplace people. When, for example, the very nature of certain ordinary persons consists precisely of their perpetual and unvarying ordinariness, or, better still, when in spite of their most strenuous efforts to life themselves out of the rut of ordinariness and routine, then such persons acquire a certain character of their own-the typical character of mediocrity which refuses to remain what it is and desires at all costs to become original and independent, without having the slightest capacity for independence.”

“But beware of looking for goals: look for a way of life. Decide how you want to live and then see what you can do to make a living WITHIN that way of life.”

“Entre as recordações de cada pessoa, há coisas que ela não conta para qualquer um, somente para os amigos. Há também aquelas que ela não conta nem para os amigos, somente para sim mesma, e isso secretamente. Mas, finalmente, há também aquelas que o indivíduo tem medo de revelar até para si mesmo, e um homem respeitável tem tais coisas acumuladas em grande quantidade. E pode ser assim mesmo: quanto mais respeitável ele é, mais coisas desse tipo ele tem acumuladas. Eu, pelo menos, só recentemente tomei coragem para recordar algumas das minhas aventuras passadas, as quais até agora tinha evitado com uma certa inquietação. E agora, quando não só recordei, como até me decidi a escrevê-las, agora exatamente quero tirar a prova: é possível alguém ser inteiramente sincero consigo mesmo e não temer toda a verdade? A propósito: Heine afirma que é quase impossível existirem autobiografias sinceras, porque na certa o ser humano mentirá, falando de si mesmo. Na opinião dele, por exemplo, Rousseau sem dúvida mentiu sobre si mesmo em suas 'Confissões' e fez isso até deliberadamente, por vaidade. Estou convencido de que Heine está certo; entendo perfeitamente como, às vezes, alguém pode confessar uma série de crimes por pura vaidade e percebo até muito bem de que tipo pode ser essa vaidade.”