Fyodor Dostoyevsky - Crime and Punishment (1866)

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I saw clear as daylight how strange it is that not a single person living in this mad world has had the daring to go straight for it all and send it flying to the devil! I...I wanted to have the daring...and I killed her.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky
The man who has a conscience suffers whilst acknowledging his sin. That is his punishment.

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
There are chance meetings with strangers that interest us from the first moment, before a word is spoken.

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

Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Accept suffering and achieve atonement through it — that is what you must do.

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
And 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 Dostoyevsky
The most offensive is not their lying—one can always forgive lying—lying is a delightful thing, for it leads to truth—what is offensive is that they lie and worship their own lying…

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

Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Don't be overwise; fling yourself straight into life, without deliberation; don't be afraid - the flood will bear you to the bank and set you safe on your feet again.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky
I did not bow down to you, I bowed down to all the suffering of humanity.

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
Your worst sin is that you have destroyed and betrayed yourself for nothing.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky
What if man is not really a scoundrel, man in general, I mean, the whole race of mankind-then all the rest is prejudice, simply artificial terrors and there are no barriers and it's all as it should be.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky
What do you think, would not one tiny crime be wiped out by thousands of good deeds?

Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Break what must be broken, once for all, that's all, and take the suffering on oneself.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky
That's just the point: an honest and sensitive man opens his heart, and the man of business goes on eating - and then he eats you up.

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
You are a man still young, so to say, in your first youth and so put intellect above everything...

Fyodor Dostoyevsky
We always imagine eternity as something beyond our conception, something vast, vast! But why must it be vast?

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
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
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 Dostoyevsky
A special form of misery had begun to oppress him of late. There was nothing poignant, nothing acute about it; but there was a feeling of permanence, of eternity about it; it brought a foretaste of hopeless years of this cold leaden misery, a foretaste of an eternity "on a square yard of space.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Do you understand, sir, do you understand what it means when you have absolutely nowhere to turn?" Marmeladov's question came suddenly into his mind "for every man must have somewhere to turn...

Fyodor Dostoyevsky
It takes something more than intelligence to act intelligently.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Suffering is part and parcel of extensive intelligence and a feeling heart.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky