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Fyodor Dostoevsky

Fyodor Dostoevsky Quotes

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Famous Fyodor Dostoevsky Quotes

“I am a sick man...I am a wicked man. An unattractive man. I think my liver hurts. However, i don't know a fig about my sickness, and am not sure what it is that hurts me. I am not being treated and never have been, though I respect medicine. What's more, I am also superstitious in the extreme; well, at least enough to respect medicine.”

ThinkingKnowsMenWellsHas BeensEnoughHurtSickMedicineExtremesTreatedNot SureWickedSicknessHurt MeLiverSuperstitiousUnattractiveFigsRespect MeWicked ManSick Man
Author:Fyodor Dostoevsky
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“We're always thinking of eternity as an idea that cannot be understood, something immense. But why must it be? What if, instead of all this, you suddenly find just a little room there, something like a village bath-house, grimy, and spiders in every corner, and that's all eternity is. Sometimes, you know, I can't help feeling that that's what it is.”

IfsThinkingKnowsLittlesI CanIdeasSometimesHelpingFeelingsHouseRoomsUnderstoodEternityCornersWhat IfVillageImmenseSpidersBathsAlways ThinkingCrime And Punishment
Author:Fyodor Dostoevsky
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“He did not know that the new life would not be given him for nothing, that he would have to pay dearly for it, that it would cost him great striving, great suffering. But that is the beginning of a new story -- the story of the gradual renewal of a man, the story of his gradual regeneration, of his passing from one world into another, of his initiation into a new unknown life. That might be the subject of a new story, but our present story is ended.”

KnowsMenWorldStoriesMightSufferingGivenPaySubjectsCostStrivePunishmentPassingPassingsNew LifeRenewalRegenerationInitiationCrime And PunishmentRaskolnikov
Author:Fyodor Dostoevsky
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“If you wish to glimpse inside a human soul and get to know a man, don't bother analyzing his ways of being silent, of talking, of weeping, of seeing how much he is moved by noble ideas; you will get better results if you just watch him laugh. If he laughs well, he's a good man.”

IfsKnowsMenWayHumansWellsIdeasSoulWishResultsTalkingWatchesLaughingSeeingLaughterMovedSilentNobleBotherGet BetterGood ManGlimpseHuman SoulWeepingAnalyzingGood LaughHave A LaughSmile And LaughLaughs And SmilesHappiness And LaughterLaughter And JoyInspirational Laughter
Author:Fyodor Dostoevsky
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“He walked on without resting. He had a terrible longing for some distraction, but he did not know what to do, what to attempt. A new overwhelming sensation was gaining more and more mastery over him every moment; this was an immeasurable, almost physical, repulsion for everything surrounding him, an obstinate, malignant feeling of hatred. All who met him were loathsome to him - he loathed their faces, their movements, their gestures. If anyone had addressed him, he felt that he might have spat at him or bitten him... .”

IfsKnowsMomentsFeelingsMightFacesFeltMovementTerribleMetsHatredLongingSensationsOverwhelmingDistractionMasteryGesturesObstinateSpatsRepulsion
Author:Fyodor Dostoevsky
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“With old liars who have been acting all their lives there are moments when they enter so completely into their part that they tremble or shed tears in earnest, although at that very moment, or a second later, they are able to whisper to themselves, "You know you are lying, you shameless old sinner! You're acting now, in spite of your 'holy' wrath.”

KnowsHas BeensMomentsAbleLyingActingTearsHolySpiteSinnerLiarsShedEarnestWrathShamelessActing Now
Author:Fyodor Dostoevsky
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“Know, then, that now, precisely now, these people are more certain than ever before that they are completely free, and at the same time they themselves have brought us their freedom and obediently laid it at our feet. It is our doing, but is it what you wanted? This sort of freedom?' Again I don't understand', Alyosha interrupted, 'Is he being ironic? Is he laughing?' Not in the least. He precisely lays it to his and his colleagues' credit that they have finally overcome freedom, and have done so in order to make people happy.”

PeopleKnowsDoneWantedCertainOrderLaughingFeetOvercomingLaysCreditIronicColleaguesInterruptedMaking People Happy
Author:Fyodor Dostoevsky
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“The man who lies to himself can be more easily offended than anyone else. You know it is sometimes very pleasant to take offense, isn't it? A man may know that nobody has insulted him, but that he has invented the insult for himself, has lied and exaggerated to make it picturesque, has caught at a word and made a mountain out of a molehill--he knows that himself, yet he will be the first to take offense, and will revel in his resentment till he feels great pleasure in it.”

KnowsMenFeelsFirstsMayMadeSometimesLyingPleasureMountainCaughtPleasantInsultResentmentOffenseOffendedLiedExaggeratedInsultedPicturesqueEasily OffendedInsulted Him
Book:The Brothers Karamazov
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“Love is a teacher, but one must know how to acquire it, for it is difficult to acquire, it is dearly bought, by long work over a long time, for one ought to love not for a chance moment but for all time. Anyone, even a wicked man, can love by chance.”

KnowsMenLongMomentsDifficultChanceLove IsKnow HowTeacherOughtLong TimeAll TimeAcquireWickedWicked Man
Book:The Brothers Karamazov: A Novel in Four Parts With Epilogue
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“‎Honoured sir, poverty is not a vice, that's a true saying. Yet I know too that drunkeness is not a virtue, and that's even truer. But beggary, honoured sir, beggary is a vice. In poverty you may still retain your innate nobility of soul, but in beggary--never--no one. For beggary a man is not chased out of human society with a stick, he is swept out with a broom, so as to make it as humiliating as possible; and quite right, too, forasmuch as in beggary as I am ready to be the first to humiliate myself.”

KnowsMenFirstsHumansMayStillsSoulPovertyVirtueReadySticksVicesNobilityInnateHuman SocietyHumiliatingHumiliateBroomsBeggary
Author:Fyodor Dostoevsky
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“And do you know, do you know that mankind can live without the Englishman, it can live without Germany, it can live only too well without the Russian man, it can live without science, without bread, and it only cannot live without beauty, for then there would be nothing at all to do in the world! The whole secret is here, the whole of history is here. Science itself would not stand for a minute without beauty”

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Author:Fyodor Dostoevsky
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“I know you'll probably get angry with me for that, shout, stamp your feet: "speak just for yourself and your miseries in the underground, and don't go saying 'we all.'" Excuse me, gentleman, but I am not justifying myself with this allishness. As far as I myself am concerned, I have merely carried to an extreme in my life what you have not dared to carry even halfway, and, what's more, you've taken your cowardice for good sense, and found comfort in thus deceiving yourselves. So that I, perhaps, come out even more "living" than you.”

KnowsFoundSpeakTakenFeetComfortConcernedAngryMiseryExcuseExtremesGentlemanCowardiceDeceivingStampsHalfwayGood SenseExcuse Me
Author:Fyodor Dostoevsky
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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.”

KnowsMenWholeMomentsConsciousLaysVainGentlemanWickedDo You KnowFrighteningWickednessSparrowsWicked ManNastiness
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.”

KnowsYearsLittlesRealWholeMomentsHelpingDreamNightWeekReal LifeDreamerDostoyevskyWhole YearFyodor Dostoyevsky
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!”

IfsKnowsWellsCareWantedSecretLove YouGloryInsanityRadianceFathomSay I Love YouHalosDemented
Book:The Gambler
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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.”

KnowsMindLittlesMadeStillsTwoIdeasMomentsLyingNightStarsWaitingPoorMonthsExcellentAnxiousIndifferentPatchesLoadedDrawersTwo MonthsRevolver
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.”

KnowsWorldGivingShouldWellsLooksChildrenLittlesImportantMatterFactsYoungParentAdviceCapableBirdDearDeceivingGiving Advice
Author:Fyodor Dostoevsky
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“Do you know I don't know how one can walk by a tree and not be happy at the sight of it? How can one talk to a man and not be happy in loving him! Oh, it's only that I'm not able to express it...And what beautiful things there are at every step, that even the most hopeless man must feel to be beautiful! Look at a child! Look at God's sunrise! Look at the grass, how it grows! Look at the eyes that gaze at you and love you!”

KnowsMenFeelsLooksChildrenEyeAbleBeautifulGrowsWalksStepsKnow HowTreeLove YouAnd LoveSightGrassHopelessDo You KnowBeautiful ThingsSunriseEvery StepLoving Him
Author:Fyodor Dostoevsky
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