Fyodor Dostoyevsky Quotes

253 Sourced Quotes

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
Remember, too, every day, and whenever you can, repeat to yourself, Lord, have mercy on all who appear before Thee today. For every hour and every moment thousands of men leave life on this earth, and their souls appear before God. And how many of them depart in solitude, unknown, sad, dejected that no one mourns for them or even knows whether they have lived or not!

Fyodor Dostoyevsky
One could never judge a man without seeing him close, for oneself...

Fyodor Dostoyevsky
What you need more than anything in life is a definite position.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky
If he has a conscience he will suffer for his mistake. That will be his punishment-as well as the prison.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky
At that point I ought to have gone away, but a strange sensation rose up in me, a sort of defiance of fate, a desire to challenge it, to put out my tongue at it. I laid down the largest stake allowe-four thousand gulden-and lost it. Then, getting hot, I pulled out all I had left, staked it on the same number, and lost again, after which I walked away from the table as though I were stunned. I could not even grasp what had happened to me.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky
There is immeasurably more left inside than what comes out in words.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Beyond the grave they will find nothing but death. But we shall keep the secret, and for their happiness we shall allure them with the reward of heaven and eternity.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky
One's own free unfettered choice, one's own caprice-however wild it may be, one's own fancy worked up at times to frenzy-is that very "most advantageous advantage" which we have overlooked, which comes under no classification and against which all systems and theories are continually being shattered to atoms... [an]will attain his object-that is, convince himself he is a man and not a piano-key!

Fyodor Dostoyevsky
But yet I am firmly persuaded that a great deal of consciousness, every sort of consciousness, in fact, is a disease.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky
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.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky
I am a sick man...I am a spiteful man. I am a most unpleasant man.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Actions are sometimes performed in a masterly and most cunning way, while the direction of the actions is deranged and dependent on various morbid impressions - it's like a dream.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky