Fyodor Dostoyevsky Quotes

253 Sourced Quotes

But what can a decent man speak of with most pleasure? Answer: Of himself. Well, so I will talk about myself.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Imagine that you are creating a fabric of human destiny with the object of making men happy in the end, giving them peace and rest at last, but that it was essential and inevitable to torture to death only one tiny creature... and to found that edifice on its unavenged tears, would you consent to be the architect on those conditions? Tell me, and tell the truth.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky
One may say anything about the history of the world - anything that might enter the most disordered imagination. The only thing one can't say is that it's rational.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky
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 Dostoyevsky
Dreams, as we all know, are very queer things: some parts are presented with appalling vividness, with details worked up with the elaborate finish of jewellery, while others one gallops through, as it were, without noticing them at all, as, for instance, through space and time. Dreams seem to be spurred on not by reason but by desire, not by the head but by the heart, and yet what complicated tricks my reason has played sometimes in dreams, what utterly incomprehensible things happen to it!

Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Do you know that ages will pass and mankind will proclaim in its wisdom and science that there is no crime and, therefore no sin, but that there are only hungry people. "Feed them first and then demand virtue of them!" — that is what they will inscribe on their banner which they will raise against you and which will destroy your temple.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Pray to God for gladness. Be glad as children, as the birds of heaven. And let not the sin of men confound you in your doings. Fear not that it will wear away your work and hinder its being accomplished. Do not say, 'Sin is mighty, wickedness is mighty, evil environment is mighty, and we are lonely and helpless, and evil environment is wearing us away and hindering our good work from being done.' Fly from that dejection, children!

Fyodor Dostoyevsky
He seemed, indeed, to accept everything without the least condemnation though often grieving bitterly.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky
If you were to destroy in mankind the belief in immortality, not only love but every living force maintaining the life of the world would at once be dried up. Moreover, nothing then would be immoral, everything would be lawful, even cannibalism.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky
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 Dostoyevsky
I am a dreamer. I know so little of real life that I just can't help re-living such moments as these in my dreams, for such moments are something I have very rarely experienced. I am going to dream about you the whole night, the whole week, the whole year.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky
I wanted to murder, for my own satisfaction…At that moment I did not care a damn whether I would become the benefactor of someone, or would spend the rest of my life like a spider catching them all in my web and sucking the living juices out of them.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky
It is necessary that every man have at least somewhere to go. For there are times when one absolutely must go at least somewhere!

Fyodor Dostoyevsky
A cultivated and decent man cannot be vain without setting a fearfully high standard for himself, and without despising and almost hating himself at certain moments.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Anyone who can appease a man's conscience can take his freedom away from him.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky
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 Dostoyevsky
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.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Come, try, give any one of us, for instance, a little more independence, untie our hands, widen the spheres of our activity, relax the control and we...yes, I assure you...we should be begging to be under control again at once.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky
You will have many enemies, but even your foes will love you. Life will bring you many misfortunes, but you will find your happiness in them, and will bless life and will make others bless it-which is what matters most.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky
We sometimes encounter people, even perfect strangers, who begin to interest us at first sight, somehow suddenly, all at once, before a word has been spoken.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky
I am a sick man… I am a wicked man. An unattractive man.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Talking nonsense is man's only privilege that distinguishes him from all other organisms.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Russia was a slave in Europe but would be a master in Asia.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky
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.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky
I know that you don't believe it, but indeed, life will bring you through. You will live it down in time. What you need now is fresh air, fresh air, fresh air!

Fyodor Dostoyevsky