Fyodor Dostoevsky Quotes
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I don't need money, or, better, it's not money that I need; it's not even power; I need only what is obtained by power and simply cannot be obtained without power: the solitary and calm awareness of strength! That is the fullest definition of freedom, which the world so struggles over!
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And yet I am convinced that man will never give up true suffering- that is, destruction and chaos. Why, suffering is the sole root of consciousness.
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Times of crisis, of disruption or constructive change, are not only predictable, but desirable. They mean growth. Taking a new step, uttering a new word, is what people fear most.
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Drowning men, it is said, cling to wisps of straw.
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Power is given only to those who dare to lower themselves and pick it up. Only one thing matters, one thing; to be able to dare!
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I have seen the truth. It is not as though I had invented it in my mind. I have seen it, SEEN IT and the living image of it has filled my soul forever.
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The chief thing is to love others like yourself, that's the chief thing, and that's everything; nothing else is wanted - you will find out at once how to arrange it all.
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--you wouldn't have hurt me like this for nothing. So what have I done? How have I wronged you? Tell me.
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Human laziness makes people pigeonhole one another at first site so that they find nothing in common with one another.
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Can a man possessing conciousness ever really respect himself?
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He who desires to see the living God face-to-face should not seek him in the empty, firmament of his mind, but in human love.
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'You're a gentleman,' they used to say to him. 'You shouldn't have gone murdering people with a hatchet; that's no occupation for a gentleman.'
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But try getting blindly carried away by your feelings, without reasoning, without a primary cause, driving consciousness away at least for a time; start hating, or fall in love, only so as not to sit with folded arms.
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He was one of the numerous and varied legion of dullards, of half-animated abortions, conceited, half-educated coxcombs, who attach themselves to the idea most in fashion only to vulgarize it and who caricature every cause they serve, however sincerely.
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Now I'm living out my life in a corner, trying to console myself with the stupid, useless excuse that an intelligent man cannot turn himself into anything, that only a fool can make anything he wants out of himself.
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Atheism: It seeks to replace in itself the moral power of religion, in order to appease the spiritual thirst of parched humanity and save it; not by Christ, but by force.
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Believe to the end, even if all men went astray and you were left the only one faithful; bring your offering even then and praise God in your loneliness.
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The greater the stupidity, the greater the clarity. Stupidity is brief and guileless, while wit equivocates and hides. Wit is a scoundrel, while stupidity is honest and sincere.
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One's own free unfettered choice, one's own caprice-however wild it may be, one's own fancy worked up at times to frenzy-is that very "most advantageous advantage" which we have overlooked, which comes under no classification and against which all systems and theories are continually being shattered to atoms... [an]will attain his object-that is, convince himself he is a man and not a piano-key!
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You will have many enemies, but even your foes will love you. Life will bring you many misfortunes, but you will find your happiness in them, and will bless life and will make others bless it-which is what matters most.
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Russia was a slave in Europe but would be a master in Asia.
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Until you have become really, in actual fact, as brother to everyone, brotherhood will not come to pass.
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"I love mankind," he said, "but I find to my amazement that the more I love mankind as a whole, the less I love man in particular."
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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. [...] If they drive God from the earth, we shall shelter Him underground.