Fyodor Dostoevsky Quotes

• Who doesn't desire his fathers death?

  Fyodor Dostoevsky

  The Brothers Karamazov bk. 12, ch. 5 (1879 - 1880) (translation by Constance Garnett)

  2552

• And now I am eking out my days in my corner, taunting myself with the bitter and entirely useless consolations that an intelligent man cannot seriously become anything; that only a fool can become something. Yes, sir, an intelligent nineteenth-century man must be, is morally bound to be, an essentially characterless creature; and a man of character, a man of action - an essentially limited creature. This is my conviction at the age of forty. I am forty now, and forty years - why, it is all of a lifetime, it is the deepest of old age. Living past forty is indecent, vulgar, immoral!

  Fyodor Dostoevsky

  Men  

  3329

• If thou love each thing thou wilt perceive the mystery of God in all.

  Fyodor Dostoevsky

  "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

  3757

• Paradise is hidden in each one of use, it is concealed within me too, right now, and if I wish, it will come for me in reality, tomorrow even, and for the rest of my life.

  Fyodor Dostoevsky

  Fyodor Dostoevsky (2002). “The Brothers Karamazov: A Novel in Four Parts With Epilogue”, p.303, Macmillan

  1207

• Woe to the man who offends a small child!

  Fyodor Dostoevsky

  Men  

  Fyodor Dostoevsky (2011). “The Brothers Karamazov”, p.548, Bantam Classics

  3113

• From harmony, from heavenly harmony, This universal frame began: From harmony to harmony Through all the compass of the notes it ran, The diapason closing full in Man.

  Fyodor Dostoevsky

  Men  

  2621

• There is immeasurably more left inside than what comes out in words. Your thought, even a bad one, while it is with you, is always more profound, but in words it is more ridiculous and dishonorable.

  Fyodor Dostoevsky

  Fyodor Dostoevsky (2007). “The Adolescent”, p.43, Vintage

  5105

• To study the meaning of man and of life — I am making significant progress here. I have faith in myself. Man is a mystery: if you spend your entire life trying to puzzle it out, then do not say that you have wasted your time. I occupy myself with this mystery, because I want to be a man.

  Fyodor Dostoevsky

  Men  

  "Dostoevsky : His Life and Work". Book by Konstantin Mochulski, 1971.

  4371

• The formula 'Two and two make five' is not without its attractions.

  Fyodor Dostoevsky

  5140

• Lack of originality, everywhere, all over the world, from time immemorial, has always been considered the foremost quality and the recommendation of the active, efficient and practical man.

  Fyodor Dostoevsky

  Men  

  Fyodor Dostoevsky (2012). “The Idiot (Vintage Classics)”, p.326, Vintage

  1668

• I must have justice, or I will destroy myself. And not justice in some remote and infinite time and space, but here on Earth...I want to see with my own eyes the lamb lie down with the lion and the victim rise up and embrace his murderer. I want to be there when everyone suddenly understands what it has all been about. All the religions of the world are built on this longing, and I am a believer.

  Fyodor Dostoevsky

  3954

• Love animals: God has given them the rudiments of thought and joy untroubled. Do not trouble their joy, don't harrass them, don't deprive them of their happiness, don't work against God's intent. Man, do not pride yourself on superiority to animals; they are without sin, and you, with your greatness, defile the earth by your appearance on it, and leave the traces of your foulness after you - alas, it is true of almost every one of us!

  Fyodor Dostoevsky

  Fyodor Dostoevsky (2017). “The Brothers Karamazov (English Russian Edition illustrated): Братья Карамазовы (англо-русская редакция иллюстрированная)”, p.758, Clap Publishing, LLC.

  3083

• You cannot imagine what sorrow and anger seize one's whole soul when a great idea, which one has long and piously revered, is picked up by some bunglers and dragged into the street, to more fools like themselves, and one suddenly meets it in the flea market, unrecognizable, dirty, askew, absurdly presented, without proportion, without harmony, a toy for stupid children.

  Fyodor Dostoevsky

  3884

• they may all be drunk at my place, but they're all honest, and though we do lie-because I lie, too-in the end we'll lie our way to the truth

  Fyodor Dostoevsky

  Fyodor Dostoevsky (2012). “Crime and Punishment”, p.204, Vintage

  3078

• I do not rebel against my God, I simply do not accept his world.

  Fyodor Dostoevsky

  2454

• 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.

  Fyodor Dostoevsky

  Fyodor Dostoevsky (2002). “The Brothers Karamazov: A Novel in Four Parts With Epilogue”, p.58, Macmillan

  1243

• 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.

  Fyodor Dostoevsky

  4102

• 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.

  Fyodor Dostoevsky

  5088

• 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.

  Fyodor Dostoevsky

  "The Idiot". Book by Fyodor Dostoevsky, 1868 - 1869.

  4671

• Lamentations comfort only by lacerating the heart still more. Such grief does not desire consolation. It feeds on the sense of its hopelessness. Lamentations spring only from the constant craving to re-open the wound.

  Fyodor Dostoevsky

  Heart  

  Fyodor Dostoevsky (2017). “The Brothers Karamazov (English Russian Edition illustrated): Братья Карамазовы (англо-русская редакция иллюстрированная)”, p.106, Clap Publishing, LLC.

  1392

• A beast can never be as cruel as a human being, so artistically, so picturesquely cruel.

  Fyodor Dostoevsky

  Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

  387

• I am strongly convinced that not only too much consciousness but even any consciousness at all is a sickness.

  Fyodor Dostoevsky

  3641

• Know that I've forgotten precisely nothing; but I've driven it all out of my head for a time, even the memories--until I've radically improved my circumstances. Then...then you'll see, I'll rise from the dead!

  Fyodor Dostoevsky

  1292

• It is precisely that requirement of shared worship that has been the principal source of suffering for individual man and the human race since the beginning of history. In their efforts to impose universal worship, men have unsheathed their swords and killed one another. They have invented gods and challenged each other: "Discard your gods and worship mine or I will destroy both your gods and you!"

  Fyodor Dostoevsky

  Men  

  Fyodor Dostoevsky (2011). “The Brothers Karamazov”, p.439, Bantam Classics

  4609

• I used to analyze myself down to the last thread, used to compare myself with others, recalled all the smallest glances, smiles and words of those to whom I’d tried to be frank, interpreted everything in a bad light, laughed viciously at my attempts ‘to be like the rest’ –and suddenly, in the midst of my laughing, I’d give way to sadness, fall into ludicrous despondency and once again start the whole process all over again – in short, I went round and round like a squirrel on a wheel.

  Fyodor Dostoevsky

  Fall  

  "Personal Quotes/ Biography". www.imdb.com.

  1855

• I am a ridiculous man. They call me a madman now. That would be a distinct rise in my social position were it not that they still regard me as being as ridiculous as ever.

  Fyodor Dostoevsky

  Men  

  Fyodor Dostoevsky (2012). “The Best Short Stories of Fyodor Dostoevsky”, p.263, Modern Library

  4833

• If you wish to glimpse inside a human soul and get to know a man, don't bother analyzing his ways of being silent, of talking, of weeping, of seeing how much he is moved by noble ideas; you will get better results if you just watch him laugh. If he laughs well, he's a good man.

  Fyodor Dostoevsky

  Men  

  "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

  1761

• He who masters the grey everyday is a hero.

  Fyodor Dostoevsky

  Hero  

  530

• 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.

  Fyodor Dostoevsky

  "The Dream of a Ridiculous Man" by Fyodor Dostoevsky, (Ch. V), 1877.

  1441

• He does not like showing his feelings and would rather do a cruel thing than open his heart freely.

  Fyodor Dostoevsky

  Heart  

  Fyodor Dostoevsky, Jane Austen, Lewis Carroll, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (2014). “The 10 Greatest Books of All Time”, p.211, Google Publishing

  4805

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