Fyodor Dostoevsky Quotes
-
Intelligence alone is not nearly enough when it comes to acting wisely.
-
There is something at the bottom of every new human thought, every thought of genius, or even every earnest thought that springs up in any brain, which can never be communicated to others, even if one were to write volumes about it and were explaining one's idea for thirty-five years; there's something left which cannot be induced to emerge from your brain, and remains with you forever; and with it you will die, without communicating to anyone perhaps the most important of your ideas.
-
But it's precisely in this cold, loathsome half-despair, half-belief, in this deliberate burying of yourself underground for forty years out of sheer pain, in this assiduously constructed, and yet somewhat dubious hopelessness, in all this poision of unfulfilled desires turned inward, this fever of vacillations, of resolutions adopted for eternity, and of repentances a moment later that you find the very essence of that strange, sharp pleasure.
-
What man wants is simply independent choice, whatever that independence may cost and wherever it may lead.
-
The stupider one is, the closer one is to reality. The stupider one is, the clearer one is. Stupidity is brief and artless, while intelligence wriggles and hides itself. Intelligence is a knave, but stupidity is honest and straightforward.
-
He who masters the grey everyday is a hero.
-
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.
-
It is amazing what one ray of sunshine can do for a man!
-
If everything on earth were rational, nothing would happen.
-
There were moments when I hated everybody I came across, innocent or guilty, and looked at them as thieves who were robbing me of my life with impunity. The most unbearable misfortune is when you yourself become unjust, malignant, vile; you realize it, you even reproach yourself - but you just can't help it.
-
Drowning men, it is said, cling to wisps of straw.
-
Psychology lures even most serious people into romancing, and quite unconsciously.
-
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.
-
On our earth we can only love withsuffering and through suffering.
-
Originality and a feeling of one's own dignity are achieved only through work and struggle.
-
One must first learn to live oneself before one blames others.
-
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.
-
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.
-
But what are years, what are months!" he would exclaim. "Why count the days, when even one day is enough for man to know all happiness.
-
I am too young and I've loved you too much.
-
Oh I've plenty of time, my time is entirely my own.
-
That's always the way with fanatics; they cross themselves at the tavern and throw stones at the temple.
-
Love the animals: God has given them the rudiments of thought and joy untroubled.
-
So long as man remains free he strives for nothing so incessantly and so painfully as to find someone to worship.