Fyodor Dostoevsky Quotes
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... the more I learned, the more conscious did I become of the fact that I was ridiculous. So that for me my years of hard work at the university seem in the end to have existed for the sole purpose of demonstrating and proving to me, the more deeply engrossed I became in my studies, that I was an utterly absurd person.
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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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For a woman, all resurrection, all salvation, from whatever perdition, lies in love; in fact, it is her only way to it.
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They have succeeded in accumulating a greater mass of objects, but the joy in the world has grown less.
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What can become of him if he is in such bondage to the habit of satisfying the innumerable desires he has created for himself? He is isolated, and what concern has he with the rest of humanity? They have succeeded in accumulating a greater mass of objects, but the joy in the world has grown less.
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Totally without hope one cannot live. To live without hope is to cease to live. Hell is hopelessness. It is no accident that above the entrance to Dante's hell is the inscription: "Leave behind all hope, you who enter here."
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I agree that two and two make four is an excellent thing; but to give everything its due, two and two make five is also a very fine thing.
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It’s not God that I don’t accept, Alyosha, only I most respectfully return him the ticket.
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Whoever has experienced the power and the unrestrained ability to humiliate another human being automatically loses his own sensations. Tyranny is a habit, it has its own organic life, it develops finally into a disease. The habit can kill and coarsen the very best man or woman to the level of a beast. Blood and power intoxicate ... the return of the human dignity, repentance and regeneration becomes almost impossible.
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And though I suffer for you, yet it eases my heart to suffer for you.
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It is easier for a Russian to become an Atheist, than for any other nationality in the world. And not only does a Russian 'become an Atheist,' but he actually BELIEVES IN Atheism, just as though he had found a new faith, not perceiving that he has pinned his faith to a negation. Such is our anguish of thirst!
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I believe the best definition of man is the ungrateful biped.
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One can know a man from his laugh, and if you like a man's laugh before you know anything of him, you may confidently say that he is a good man.
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So long as man remains free he strives for nothing so incessantly and so painfully as to find someone to worship.
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One's own free and unfettered volition, one's own caprice, however wild, one's own fancy, inflamed sometimes to the point of madness - that is the one best and greatest good, which is never taken into consideration because it cannot fit into any classification and the omission of which sends all systems and theories to the devil.
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Who doesn't desire his fathers death?
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Neither man nor nation can exist without a sublime idea.
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Alyosha's heart could not bear uncertainty, for the nature of his love was always active. He could not love passively; once he loved, he immediately also began to help.
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Intelligence alone is not nearly enough when it comes to acting wisely.
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Never mind a little dirt, if the goal is splendid!
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They were like two enemies in love with one another.
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For all is like an ocean, all flows and connects; touch it in one place and it echoes at the other end of the world.
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To go wrong in one's own way is better than to go right in someone else's.
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The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons.