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FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY QUOTES II

A fool with a heart and no sense is just as unhappy as a fool with sense and no heart.

FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY, The Idiot

I gave up caring about anything, and all the problems disappeared.

FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY, The Dream of a Ridiculous Man

It wasn't the New World that mattered ... Columbus died almost without seeing it; and not really knowing what he had discovered. It's life that matters, nothing but life — the process of discovering, the everlasting and perpetual process, not the discovery itself.

FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY, The Idiot

It's the great mystery of human life that old grief passes gradually into quiet tender joy.

FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY, The Brothers Karamazov

To be acutely conscious is a disease, a real, honest-to-goodness disease.

FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY, Notes from the Underground

If you want to overcome the whole world, overcome yourself.

FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY, Demons

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.

FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY, The Brothers Karamazov

The second half of a man's life is made up of nothing but the habits he has acquired during the first half.

FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY, attributed, 20,000 Quips & Quotes

Man is unhappy because he doesn't know he's happy. It's only that.

FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY, The Possessed

Love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing compared to love in dreams.

FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY, The Brothers Karamazov

People talk sometimes of a bestial cruelty, but that's a great injustice and insult to the beasts; a beast can never be so cruel as a man, so artistically cruel. The tiger only tears and gnaws, that's all he can do. He would never think of nailing people by the ears, even if he were able to do it.

FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY, The Brothers Karamazov

Taking a new step, uttering a new word, is what people fear most.

FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY, Crime and Punishment

Man only likes to count his troubles; he doesn't calculate his happiness.

FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY, Notes from the Underground

The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to such a pass that he cannot distinguish the truth within him.

FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY, The Brothers Karamazov

Men reject their prophets and slay them, but they love their martyrs and honor those they have slain.

FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY, The Brothers Karamazov

My God, a moment of bliss. Why, isn't that enough for a whole lifetime?

FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY, White Nights

Above all, avoid falsehood, every kind of falsehood, especially falseness to yourself. Watch over your own deceitfulness and look into it every hour, every minute.

FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY, The Brothers Karamazov

Is it really not possible to touch the gaming table without being instantly infected by superstition?

FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY, The Gambler

Killing myself was a matter of such indifference to me that I felt like waiting for a moment when it would make some difference.

FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY, The Dream of a Ridiculous Man

The more I drink the more I feel it. That's why I drink too. I try to find sympathy and feeling in drink.... I drink so that I may suffer twice as much!

FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY, Crime and Punishment

The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons.

FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY, The House of the Dead

If you are penitent, you love. And if you love you are of God. All things are atoned for, all things are saved by love.

FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY, The Brothers Karamazov

The formula 'two plus two equals five' is not without its attractions.

FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY, Notes from the Underground

Pain and suffering are always inevitable for a large intelligence and a deep heart. The really great men must, I think, have great sadness on Earth.

FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY, Crime and Punishment

If anyone could prove to me that Christ is outside the truth, and if the truth really did exclude Christ, I should prefer to stay with Christ and not with truth.

FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY, letter to Mme. N. D. Fonvisin, 1854, attributed in Letters of Fyodor Michailovitch Dostoevsky to his Family and Friends (Ethel Golburn Mayne)

I think the devil doesn't exist, but man has created him, he has created him in his own image and likeness.

FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY, The Brothers Karamazov

If you want to be respected by others the great thing is to respect yourself. Only by that, only by self-respect will you compel others to respect you.

FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY, The Insulted and the Injured

Nothing in this world is harder than speaking the truth, nothing easier than flattery.

FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY, Crime and Punishment

Love all God’s creation, the whole and every grain of sand in it. Love every leaf, every ray of God's light. Love the animals, love the plants, love everything. If you love everything, you will perceive the divine mystery in things. Once you perceive it, you will begin to comprehend it better every day. And you will come at last to love the whole world.

FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY, The Brothers Karamazov

It is not as a child that I believe and confess Jesus Christ. My hosanna is born of a furnace of doubt.

FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY, attributed, Kierkegaard: The Melancholy Dane (Harold Victor Martin)

It was not only that I could not become spiteful, I did not know how to become anything; neither spiteful nor kind, neither a rascal nor an honest man, neither a hero nor an insect. Now, I am living out my life in my corner, taunting myself with the spiteful and useless consolation that an intelligent man cannot become anything seriously, and it is only the fool who becomes anything.

FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY, Notes from the Underground

Inventors and geniuses have almost always been looked on as no better than fools at the beginning of their career, and very frequently at the end of it also.

FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY, The Idiot

Since man cannot live without miracles, he will provide himself with miracles of his own making. He will believe in witchcraft and sorcery, even though he may otherwise be a heretic, an atheist, and a rebel.

FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY, The Brothers Karamazov

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, The Brothers Karamazov

I had an hysterical craving for incongruity and for contrast, and so I took to vice.

FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY, Notes from the Underground

I say let the world go to hell, but I should always have my tea.

FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY, Notes from the Underground

The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others.

FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY, The Brothers Karamazov

What is a Socialist? That's when all are equal and all have property in common, there are no marriages, and everyone has any religion and laws he likes best. You are not old enough to understand that yet.

FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY, The Brothers Karamazov

God has such gladness every time he sees from heaven that a sinner is praying to Him with all his heart, as a mother has when she sees the first smile on her baby's face.

FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY, The Idiot

Yet, I didn't understand that she was intentionally disguising her feelings with sarcasm; that was usually the last resort of people who are timid and chaste of heart, whose souls have been coarsely and impudently invaded; and who, until the last moment, refuse to yield out of pride and are afraid to express their own feelings to you.

FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY, Notes from the Underground

Nothing helps a man to reform like thinking of the past with regret.

FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY, The Idiot

I have lost all touch, all instinct for the actual, the real; because at last I have cursed myself; because after my fantastic nights I have moments of returning sobriety, which are awful! Meanwhile, you hear the whirl and roar of the crowd in the vortex of life around you; you hear, you see, men living in reality; you see that life for them is not forbidden, that their life does not float away like a dream, like a vision; that their life is being eternally renewed, eternally youthful, and not one hour of it is the same as another; while fancy is so spiritless, monotonous to vulgarity and easily scared, the slave of shadows, of the idea, the slave of the first cloud that shrouds the sun.

FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY, White Nights

The world says: "You have needs -- satisfy them. You have as much right as the rich and the mighty. Don't hesitate to satisfy your needs; indeed, expand your needs and demand more." This is the worldly doctrine of today. And they believe that this is freedom. The result for the rich is isolation and suicide, for the poor, envy and murder.

FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY, The Brothers Karamazov

Hang your merit. I don't seek anyone's approbation.

FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY, The Possessed


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