Best 302 quotes of Fyodor Dostoyevsky on MyQuotes

Above all, avoid lying, especially lying to yourself. Keep watching out for your lies, watch for them every hour, every minute. Also avoid disgust, both for others and yourself: whatever strikes you as disgusting within yourself is cleansed by the mere fact that you notice it. Avoid fear, too, although fear is really only a consequence of lies. Never be afraid of your petty selfishness when you try to achieve love and don’t be too alarmed if you act badly on occasion.

According to my rule, you can find in every woman something - damn it! - something extraordinarily interesting, something you won't find in any other woman. Only you must know how to find it - that's the point! That requires talent! For me ugly women do not exist: the very fact that she's a woman is half the attraction for me- but how could you understand that? Even in old maids you sometimes find something so attractive that you can't help marvelling at the damn fools who've let them grow old without noticing it! The first thing to do with barefooted girls and ugly women is to take them by surprise - that's how one should deal with them. You didn't know that, did you? They must be surprised till they're enraptured, till they're transfixed, till they're ashamed that such a gentleman should have fallen in love with such a swarthy creature. What's so wonderful is that so long as there are peasants and gentlemen in the world - and there always will be - there will also be such lovely little scullery maids and their masters - that's all one needs for one's happiness.

A complete atheist stands on the next-to-last upper step to the most complete faith (he may or may not take that step), while the indifferent one has no faith, apart from a bad fear.

A contemptible person, but ready to face suffering!

A decent, educated man cannot afford the luxury of vanity without being exceedingly exacting with himself and without occasionally despising himself to the point of hatred.

Advantage! What is advantage? And will you take it upon yourself to define with perfect accuracy in what the advantage of man consists? And what if it so happens that a man's advantage, sometimes, not only may, but even must, consist in his desiring in certain cases what is harmful to himself and not advantageous. And if so, if there can be such a case, the whole principle falls into dust. What do you think–are there such cases? You laugh; laugh away, gentlemen, but only answer me: have man's advantages been reckoned up with perfect certainty?

A fresh dream-fresh happiness! A fresh rush of delicate, voluptuous poison! What is real life to him ! To his corrupted eyes we live, you and I, Nastenka, so torpidly, slowly, insipidly; in his eyes we are all so dissatisfied with our fate, so exhausted by our life"! And, truly, see how at first sight everything is cold, morose, as though ill-humoured among us. . . . Poor things! thinks our dreamer. And it is no wonder that he thinks it! Look at these magic phantasms, which so enchantingly, so whimsically, so carelessly and freely group before him in such a magic, animated picture, in which the most prominent figure in the foreground is of course himself, our dreamer, in his precious person.

Ah youth, youth! That's what happens when you go steeping your soul into Shakespeare

Alas, I had always loved sorrow and grief, but only for myself, for myself; for them I wept in my pity. I stretched out my arms to them in my despair, accusing, cursing, and despising myself. I told them that I had done all this, I alone, that I had brought them corruption, contagion, and lies!

Alexandra, my eldest, here, plays the piano, or reads or sews; Adelaida paints landscapes and portraits (but never finishes any); and Aglaya sits and does nothing. I don't work too much, either.

All is in a man's hands and he lets it all slip from cowardice, that's an axiom. It would be interesting to know what it is men are most afraid of. Taking a new step, uttering a new word is what they fear most… .

[Alyosha] was to some extent a youth of our last epoch — that is, honest in nature, desiring the truth, seeking for it and believing in it, and seeking to serve it at once with all the strength of his soul, seeking for immediate action, and ready to sacrifice everything, life itself, for it. Though these young men unhappily fail to understand that the sacrifice of life is, in many cases, the easiest of all sacrifices, and that to sacrifice, for instance, five or six years of their seething youth to hard and tedious study, if only to multiply tenfold their powers of serving the truth and the cause they have set before them as their goal, such a sacrifice is utterly beyond the strength of many of them.

A man who lies to himself, and believes his own lies, becomes unable to recognize truth, either in himself or in anyone else, and he ends up losing respect for himself and for others. When he has no respect for anyone, he can no longer love, and in him, he yields to his impulses, indulges in the lowest form of pleasure, and behaves in the end like an animal in satisfying his vices. And it all comes from lying — to others and to yourself.

And all that for the most foolish reason, which, one would think, was hardly worth mentioning: that is, that man everywhere and at all times, whoever he may be, has preferred to act as he chose and not in the least as his reason and advantage dictated. And one may choose what is contrary to one's own interests, and sometimes one positively ought (that is my idea).

And, beginning to grind his teeth again, Pyotr Petrovich admitted that he'd been a fool--but only to himself, of course.

And even if we are occupied by most important things, if we attain to honour, or fall into great misfortune -- still let us remember how good it was once here, when we were all together, united by a good and kind feeling which made us...better perhaps than we are.

And even though we may be involved with the most important affairs, achieve distinction or fall into some great misfortune- all the same, let us never forget how good we all once felt here, all together, united by such good and kind feelings as made us, too,...perhaps better than we actually are.

And He will judge and will forgive all, the good and the evil, the wise and the meek . . . And when He has done with all of them, then He will summon us. ‘You too come forth,’ He will say, ‘Come forth ye drunkards, come forth, ye weak ones, come forth, ye children of shame!’ And we shall all come forth, without shame and shall stand before him. And He will say unto us, ‘Ye are swine, made in the Image of the Beast and with his mark; but come ye also!’ And the wise ones and those of understanding will say, ‘Oh Lord, why dost Thou receive these men?’ And He will say, ‘This is why I receive them, oh ye wise, this is why I receive them, oh ye of understanding, that not one of them believed himself to be worthy of this.’ And He will hold out His hands to us and we shall fall down before him . . . and we shall weep . . . and we shall understand all things! Then we shall understand everything! . . . and all will understand

And, indeed, I will ask on my own account here, an idle question: which is better - cheap happiness or exalted sufferings? Well, which is better?

And indeed man has invented God. And the strange thing, the wonderful thing, is not that God really does exist, but that an idea like that - the idea of God's necessity - could find its way into the head of a savage and vicious animal such as man, so sacred is it, that idea, so touching, so exceedingly wise and so greatly to his honour.

...and in fact I've noticed that faith always seems to be less in the daytime

And no one, no one should know what passes between husband and wife if they love one another. And whatever quarrels there may be between them they ought not to call in their own mother to judge between them and tell tales of one another. They are their own judges. Love is a holy mystery and ought to be hidden from all other eyes, whatever happens.

And this need for communality of worship is the chief torment of each man individually, and of mankind as a whole, from the beginning of the ages. In the cause of universal worship, they have destroyed each other with the sword. They have made gods and called upon each other: "Abandon your gods and come and worship ours, otherwise death to you and your gods!" And so it will be until the end of the world, even when all gods have disappeared from the earth: they will still fall down before idols. (...) I tell you that man has no more tormenting care than to find someone to whom he can hand over as quick as possible that gift of freedom with which the miserable creature is born.

And what if there are only spiders there, or something of that sort

and what shall I have to dream of when I have been so happy in reality beside you!

And who knows (one cannot vouch for it), perhaps the whole goal mankind strives for on earth consists just in this ceaselessness of the process of achievement alone, that is to say, in life itself, and not essentially in the goal, which, of course, is bound to be nothing other than two times two is four--that is, a formula; and two times two is four is no longer life, gentlemen, but the beginning of death.

And with love one can live even without happiness.

And yet how simple it is: in one day, in one hour everything could be arranged at once! 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.

- A necessidade de comer e beber é simplesmente o instinto de autoconservação! - Mas não acha que esse instinto de autopreservação por si só é importante? Ora, o instinto de autoconservação é a lei normal da humanidade! - Quem lhe disse isso? Que é uma lei, não há dúvida. Mas não é mais normal do que a lei de destruição, ou mesmo a de autodestruição. Acha que a autoconservação seja a única lei da espécie humana?

Anger was buried far too early in a young heart, which perhaps contained much good.

Another circumstance, too, worried me in those days: that there was no one like me and I was unlike anyone else. "I am alone and they are everyone," I thought–and pondered.

As aparições são, por assim dizer, pedaços ou fragmentos de outros mundos, o seu princípio. É claro que o homem são não tem motivo para vê-las, porque o homem são é o homem mais terreno, e deve viver uma vida terrestre, em harmonia e ordem. Mas quando adoece, ou quando a ordem terrena se altera no organismo, começa imediatamente a se mostrar a possibilidade de outro mundo, e, quanto mais doente, mais em contato com esse outro mundo ele se encontra, de maneira que, quando morre completamente, o homem vai direto para esse mundo

As for my own personal opinion. I find it somehow unseemly to love only well-being. Whether it's a good thing or a bad thing, smashing things is also sometimes very pleasant. I am not standing up for suffering, or for well-being either. I am standing up for my own caprices and for having them guaranteed when necessary.

As for what concerns me in particular I have only in my life carried to an extreme what you have not dared to carry halfway, and what's more, you have taken your cowardice for good sense, and have found comfort in deceiving yourselves. So that perhaps, after all, there is more life in me than in you. Look into it more carefully! Why, we don't even know what living means now, what it is, and what it is called? Leave us alone without books and we shall be lost and in confusion at once. We shall not know what to join on to, what to cling to, what to love and what to hate, what to respect and what to despise. We are oppressed at being men--men with a real individual body and blood, we are ashamed of it, we think it a disgrace and try to contrive to be some sort of impossible generalised man. We are stillborn, and for generations past have been begotten, not by living fathers, and that suits us better and better. We are developing a taste for it. Soon we shall contrive to be born somehow from an idea.

Aşık olmak sevmek demek değildir. Nefret ederken de aşık olmak mümkündür.

As soon as he reflected seriously he was convinced of the existence of God and immortality, and at once he instinctively said to himself: "I want to live for immortality, and I will accept no compromise." In the same way, if he had decided that God and immortality did not exist, he would have at once become an atheist and a socialist. For socialism is not merely the labor question, it is before all things the atheistic question, the question of the form taken by atheism to-day, the question of the tower of Babel built without God, not to mount to heaven from earth but to set up heaven on earth.

At some thoughts one stands perplexed - especially at the sight of men's sin - and wonders whether one should use force or humble love. Always decide to use humble love. If you resolve on that, once and for all, you may subdue the whole world. Loving humility is marvelously strong, the strongest of all things, and there is nothing else like it.

At that time I was only twenty-four years old. My life then was already gloomy, disorderly, and solitary to the point of savagery.

A vida só me é dada uma vez, e ela nunca mais voltará—eu não quero esperar a 'felicidade geral'. Eu mesmo quero viver; do contrário o melhor seria não existir.

Bah! You want to hear the vilest thing a man’s done and you want him to be a hero at the same time!

Benim düşüncem," diye düşünüyordu, "dünya kuruldu kurulalı birbiriyle çarpışmakta olan öteki düşünce ve teorilerden hangi bakımdan, hangi bakımdan daha aptalca, daha budalaca? Olaya gündelik hayat açısından değil, özgürce ve geniş bir açıdan bakılacak olursa, benim düşüncelerimin hiç de o kadar... tuhaf olmadığı görülecektir. Ey inkarcılar, ey beş paralık bilgeler, ne diye yan yolda duruyorsunuz! Ve benim davranışım hangi bakımdan onlara böylesine çirkin görünüyor ? Bir cinayet olduğu için mi ? Ne demek, cinayet ? Benim vicdanım rahat. Hiç kuşkusuz ortada ağır bir suç var ve yine hiç kuşkusuz yasalar çiğnenmiş ve kan dökülmüştür... Madem öyle, çiğnenen yasalarınıza karşılık siz de benim başımı alın, olsun bitsin! Ama o zaman saltanat yoluyla değil de, iktidarı zorla ele geçirerek insanlığa iyilikte bulunanların da, hem de daha ilk adımlarında, kafalarını kesmek gerekmez miydi?

Beside himself with shame and despair, the utterly ruined though perfectly just Mr. Golyadkin dashed headlong away, wherever fate might lead him; but with every step he took, with every thud of his foot on the granite of the pavement, there leapt up as though out of the earth a Mr. Golyadkin precisely the same, perfectly alike, and of a revolting depravity of heart. And all these precisely similar Golyadkins set to running after one another as soon as they appeared, and stretched in a long chain like a file of geese, hobbling after the real Mr. Golyadkin, so there was nowhere to escape from these duplicates — so that Mr. Golyadkin, who was in every way deserving of compassion, was breathless with terror; so that at last a terrible multitude of duplicates had sprung into being; so that the whole town was obstructed at last by duplicate Golyadkins, and the police officer, seeing such a breach of decorum, was obliged to seize all these duplicates by the collar and to put them into the watch-house, which happened to be beside him . . . Numb and chill with horror, our hero woke up, and numb and chill with horror felt that his waking state was hardly more cheerful . . . It was oppressive and harrowing . . . He was overcome by such anguish that it seemed as though some one were gnawing at his heart.

Braćo, ne bojte se grehova ljudskih, volite čoveka i u grehu njegovom, jer kad ko voli čoveka grešnog, to je već slika Božanske ljubavi i vrhunac je ljubavi na zemlji. Volite sve stvorenje Božje i celokupno i svaku mrvicu. Svaki listić, svaku zraku Božju volite. Volite životinje, volite bilje, volite svaku stvar. Budeš li voleo svaku stvar – i tajnu ćeš Božju razumeti u stvarima. A shvatiš li je jedared, ti ćeš je posle neumorno početi poznavati sve dalje i više, svakodnevno. I zavolećeš, najzad, sav svet vascelom i vasionom ljubavlju. Životinje volite: njima je Bog dao klicu misli i tihu radost. Nemojte im je narušavati i remetiti, ne mučite ih, ne oduzimajte im radost, ne protivite se misli Božjoj. Čoveče, ne uznosi se, ne misli da si bolji od životinje: one su bezgrešne, a ti, sa svojim veličanstvom, ti samo gnojiš zemlju svojom pojavom, na njoj trag svoj gnojni ostavljaš posle sebe, - i to, avaj, skoro svaki, svaki između nas! Decu volite naročito, jer ona su bezgrešna kao anđeli i žive da bi nas razdragala i usrećila; ona žive zarad čišćenja srdaca naših, kao neki putokaz za nas. Teško onome ko uvredi dete...

But a certain dullness of mind seems an almost necessary qualification, if not for every public man, at least for every one seriously engaged in making money.

But how did I murder her? Is that how men do murders? Do men go to commit a murder as I went then? I will tell you some day how I went! Did I murder the old woman? I murdered myself, not her! I crushed myself once for all, for ever.… But it was the devil that killed that old woman, not I. Enough, enough, Sonia, enough! Let me be!

But how much love, oh, Lord, how much love I experienced at times in those dreams of mine, in those “escapes into everything beautiful and sublime.” Even though it was fantastic love, even though it was never directed at anything human, there was still so much love that afterward, in reality, I no longer felt any impulse to direct it: that would have been an unnecessary luxury.

…but it is in despair that the most burning pleasures occur, especially when one is all too highly conscious of the hopelessness of one’s position.

…but it is in despair that the most burning pleasures occur…

But I've still better things about children. I've collected a great, great deal about Russian children, Alyosha. There was a little girl of five who was hated by her father and mother, 'most worthy and respectable people, of good education and breeding.' You see, I must repeat again, it is a peculiar characteristic of many people, this love of torturing children, and children only. To all other types of humanity these torturers behave mildly and benevolently, like cultivated and humane Europeans; but they are very fond of tormenting children, even fond of children themselves in that sense. it's just their defencelessness that tempts the tormentor, just the angelic confidence of the child who has no refuge and no appeal, that sets his vile blood on fire. In every man, of course, a demon lies hidden- the demon of rage, the demon of lustful heat at the screams of the tortured victim, the demon of lawlessness let off the chain, the demon of diseases that follow on vice, gout, kidney disease, and so on. "This poor child of five was subjected to every possible torture by those cultivated parents. They beat her, thrashed her, kicked her for no reason till her body was one bruise. Then, they went to greater refinements of cruelty- shut her up all night in the cold and frost in a privy, and because she didn't ask to be taken up at night (as though a child of five sleeping its angelic, sound sleep could be trained to wake and ask), they smeared her face and filled her mouth with excrement, and it was her mother, her mother did this. And that mother could sleep, hearing the poor child's groans! Can you understand why a little creature, who can't even understand what's done to her, should beat her little aching heart with her tiny fist in the dark and the cold, and weep her meek unresentful tears to dear, kind God to protect her? Do you understand that, friend and brother, you pious and humble novice? Do you understand why this infamy must be and is permitted? Without it, I am told, man could not have existed on earth, for he could not have known good and evil. Why should he know that diabolical good and evil when it costs so much? Why, the whole world of knowledge is not worth that child's prayer to dear, kind God'! I say nothing of the sufferings of grown-up people, they have eaten the apple, damn them, and the devil take them all! But these little ones! I am making you suffer, Alyosha, you are not yourself. I'll leave off if you like

But man is a frivolous and incongruous creature, and perhaps, like a chess player, loves the process of the game, not the end of it. And who knows (there is no saying with certainty), perhaps the only goal on earth to which mankind is striving lies in this incessant process of attaining, in other words, in life itself, and not in the thing to be attained, which must always be expressed as a formula, as positive as twice two makes four, and such positiveness is not life, gentlemen, but is the beginning of death. Anyway, man has always been afraid of this mathematical certainty, and I am afraid of it now. Granted that man does nothing but seek that mathematical certainty, he traverses oceans, sacrifices his life in the quest, but to succeed, really to find it, dreads, I assure you. He feels that when he has found it there will be nothing for him to look for. When workmen have finished their work they do at least receive their pay, they go to the tavern, then they are taken to the police-station–and there is occupation for a week. But where can man go? Anyway, one can observe a certain awkwardness about him when he has attained such objects. He loves the process of attaining, but does not quite like to have attained, and that, of course, is very absurd. In fact, man is a comical creature; there seems to be a kind of jest in it all. But yet mathematical certainty is after all, something insufferable. Twice two makes four seems to me simply a piece of insolence. Twice two makes four is a pert coxcomb who stands with arms akimbo barring your path and spitting. I admit that twice two makes four is an excellent thing, but if we are to give everything its due, twice two makes five is sometimes a very charming thing too.