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Fyodor Dostoevsky

Fyodor Dostoevsky Quotes

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Famous Fyodor Dostoevsky Quotes

“It suddenly seemed to me that I was lonely, that every one was forsaking me and going away from me. Of course, any one is entitled to ask who "every one" was. For though I had been living almost eight years in Petersburg I had hardly an acquaintance. But what did I want with acquaintances? I was acquainted with all Petersburg as it was.”

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Book:White Nights: Dostoevsky's Collections
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“I am a wicked man... But do you know, gentlemen, what was the main point about my wickedness? The whole thing, precisely was, the greatest nastiness precisely lay in my being shamefully conscious every moment, even in moments of the greatest bile, that I was not only not a wicked man but was not even an embittered man, that I was simply frightening sparrows in vain, and pleasing myself with it.”

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Author:Fyodor Dostoevsky
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“Oh, gentlemen, perhaps I really regard myself as an intelligent man only because throughout my entire life I've never been able to start or finish anything. Granted, granted I'm a babbler, a harmless, irksome babbler, as we all are. But what's to be done if the sole and express purpose of every intelligent man is babble--that is, a deliberate pouring from empty into void.”

IfsMenDoneAblePurposeEmptyIntelligentRegardGrantedGentlemanVoidSoleDeliberatePouringIntelligent Man
Author:Fyodor Dostoevsky
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“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.”

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Book:The Best Short Stories of Fyodor Dostoevsky
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“I wanted to fathom her secrets; I wanted her to come to me and say: "I love you," and if not that, if that was senseless insanity, then...well, what was there to care about? Did I know what I wanted? I was like one demented: all I wanted was to be near her, in the halo of her glory, in her radiance, always, for ever, all my life. I knew nothing more!”

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Book:The Gambler
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“I did not understand that she was hiding her feelings under irony, that this is usually the last refuge of modest and chaste-souled people when the privacy of their soul is coarsely and intrusively invaded, and that their pride makes them refuse to surrender till the last moment and shrink from giving expression to their feelings before you. to have guessed the truth from the timidity with which she had repeatedly approached her sarcasm, only bringing herself to utter it at last with an effort.”

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Author:Fyodor Dostoevsky
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“Even there, in the mines, underground, I may find a human heart in another convict and murderer by my side, and I may make friends with him, for even there one may live and love and suffer. One may thaw and revive a frozen heart in that convict, one may wait upon him for years, and at last bring up from the dark depths a lofty soul, a feeling, suffering creature; one may bring forth an angel, create a hero! There are so many of them, hundreds of them, and we are all to blame for them. [...] If they drive God from the earth, we shall shelter Him underground.”

IfsYearsHumansHeartMaySoulFeelingsEarthLastsSufferingWaitingSidesDarkMinesHeroCreaturesAngelAnd LoveBlameDepthShelterHuman HeartFrozenMurdererLoftyReviveConvictsBrothers KaramazovLive And Love
Author:Fyodor Dostoevsky
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“Generally speaking, our prisoners were capable of loving animals, and if they had been allowed they would have delighted to rear large numbers of domestic animals and birds in the prison. And I wonder what other activity could better have softened and refined their harsh and brutal natures than this. But it was not allowed. Neither the regulations nor the nature of the prison made it possible.”

IfsMadeAnimalNumbersWonderActivityCapableBirdPrisonMade ItPrisonerRegulationBrutalHarshDelightedRefinedLarge Numbers
Author:Fyodor Dostoevsky
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“All of a sudden I became aware of a little star in one of those patches and I began looking at it intently. That was because the little star gave me an idea: I made up my mind to kill myself that night. I had made up my mind to kill myself already two months before and, poor as I am, I bought myself an excellent revolver and loaded it the same day. But two months had elapsed and it was still lying in the drawer. I was so utterly indifferent to everything that I was anxious to wait for the moment when I would not be so indifferent and then kill myself. Why -- I don't know.”

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Book:The Best Short Stories of Fyodor Dostoevsky
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“One can tell a child everything, anything. I have often been struck by the fact that parents know their children so little. They should not conceal so much from them. How well even little children understand that their parents conceal things from them, because they consider them too young to understand! Children are capable of giving advice in the most important matters.”

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Author:Fyodor Dostoevsky
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“Though I do not believe in the order of things, still the sticky little leaves that come out in the spring are dear to me, the blue sky is dear to me, some people are dear to me, whom one loves sometimes, would you believe it, without even knowing why; some human deeds are dear to me, which one has perhaps long ceased believing in, but still honors with one's heart, out of old habit..." --Ivan Karamazov”

PeopleBelieveHumansHeartLittlesLongStillsSometimesOrderKnowingSkyHabitHonorSpringBlueDearDeedsOne LoveBlue SkyStickyOld Habits
Book:The Brothers Karamazov: A Novel in Four Parts With Epilogue
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“To a commonplace man of limited intellect, for instance, nothing is simpler than to imagine himself an original character, and to revel in that belief without the slightest misgiving.”

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Book:The Idiot (English German edition illustrated): Der Idiot (Englisch Deutsch ausgabe illustriert)
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