Fyodor Dostoevsky Quotes
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... active love is a harsh and fearful thing compared with the love in dreams. Love in dreams thirsts for immediate action, quickly performed, and with everyone watching. Indeed, it will go as far as the giving even of one's life, provided it does not take long but is soon over, as on stage, and eveyone is looking on and praising. Whereas active love is labor and persistence, and for some people, perhaps, a whole science.
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The soul is healed by being with children.
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The more you succeed in loving, the more you'll be convinced at the existence of God and the immortality of your soul.
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I never have frustrations. The reason is to wit: Of at first I don't succeed, I quit!
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For what is man without desires, without free will, and without the power of choice but a stop in an organ pipe?
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I go to spread the tidings, I want to spread the tidings - of what? Of the truth, for I have seen it, have seen it with my own eyes, have seen it in all its glory.
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It is not the real punishment. The only effectual one, the only deterrent and softening one, lies in the recognition of sin by conscience.
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In most cases, people, even the most vicious, are much more naive and simple-minded than we assume them to be. And this is true of ourselves too.
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Ivan is the incarnation of the refusal to be the only one saved. He throws in his lot with the damned and, for their sake, rejects eternity. If he had faith, he could, in fact, be saved, but others would be damned and suffering would continue. There is no possible salvation for the man who feels real compassion.
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There is no object on earth which cannot be looked at from a cosmic point of view.
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One can't understand everything at once, we can't begin with perfection all at once! In order to reach perfection one must begin by being ignorant of a great deal. And if we understand things too quickly, perhaps we shan't understand them thoroughly.
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Do you believe in a future everlasting life? No, not in a future everlasting but in an everlasting life here. There are moments, you reach moments, and time comes to a sudden stop, and it will become eternal.
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Money is coined liberty.
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It’s not God that I do not accept, you understand, it is this world of God’s, created by God, that I do not accept and cannot agree to accept.
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Everywhere I am the object of an unbelievable esteem, the interest in me is, quite simply, tremendous.
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The perpetration of a crime is accompanied by illness!
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Above all, avoid lies, all lies, especially the lie to yourself. Keep watch on your own lie and examine it every hour, every minute. And avoid contempt, both of others and of yourself: what seems bad to you in yourself is purified by the very fact that you have noticed it in yourself. And avoid fear, though fear is simply the consequence of every lie. Never be frightened at your own faintheartedness in attaining love, and meanwhile do not even be very frightened by your own bad acts.
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I bless the rising sun each day, and, as before, my heart sings to meet it, but now I love even more its setting, its long slanting rays & the soft tender gentle memories that come with them...’ -Father Zossima
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The prince says that the world will be saved by beauty! And I maintain that the reason he has such playful ideas is that he is in love.
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If not reason, then the devil.
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The darker the night, the brighter the stars, The deeper the grief, the closer is God!
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Besides, nowadays, almost all capable people are terribly afraid of being ridiculous, and are miserable because of it.
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For men are made for happiness, and any one who is completely happy has a right to say to himself, 'I am doing God's will on earth.'
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Here my tears are falling, Nastenka. Let them flow, let them flow - they don't hurt anybody. They will dry Nastenka.