Quotessence
Home / Authors / Fyodor Dostoevsky
Fyodor Dostoevsky

Fyodor Dostoevsky Quotes

Novelist

Filter quotes by topic

AllMenIfsKnowsPeopleWorldBrothers KaramazovSufferingHeartWholeLifeLoveHumansMaySoulThinkingCrime And PunishmentLyingEarthBelieveDeep Thought

Famous Fyodor Dostoevsky Quotes

“People talk sometimes of a bestial cruelty, but that's a great injustice and insult to the beasts; a beast can never be so cruel as a man, so artistically cruel. The tiger only tears and gnaws, that's all he can do. He would never think of nailing people by the ears, even if he were able to do it.”

PeopleIfsThinkingMenSometimesAbleCan DoTearsEarsInjusticeCrueltyBeastInsultTigersBrothers Karamazov
Book:The Brothers Karamazov (English Russian Edition illustrated): Братья Карамазовы (англо-русская редакция иллюстрированная)
Create image

“Whoever has experienced the power and the unrestrained ability to humiliate another human being automatically loses his own sensations. Tyranny is a habit, it has its own organic life, it develops finally into a disease. The habit can kill and coarsen the very best man or woman to the level of a beast. Blood and power intoxicate ... the return of the human dignity, repentance and regeneration becomes almost impossible.”

MenHumansLosesHuman BeingsAbilityLevelsImpossibleBloodReturnHabitDiseaseDignityTyrannyBeastRepentanceSensationsHuman DignityRegenerationHumiliateOrganic Life
Author:Fyodor Dostoevsky
Create image

“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
Create image

“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
Create image

“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.”

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

“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
Create image

“It is precisely that requirement of shared worship that has been the principal source of suffering for individual man and the human race since the beginning of history. In their efforts to impose universal worship, men have unsheathed their swords and killed one another. They have invented gods and challenged each other: "Discard your gods and worship mine or I will destroy both your gods and you!"”

MenHumansHas BeensSufferingIndividualEffortRaceMinesSourceWorshipUniversalHuman RacePrincipalRequirements
Book:The Brothers Karamazov
Create image

“Even those who have renounced Christianity and attack it, in their inmost being still follow the Christian ideal, for hitherto neither their subtlety nor the ardour of their hearts has been able to create a higher ideal of man and of virtue than the ideal given by Christ of old.”

MenHeartHas BeensStillsAbleChristianJesusGivenChristChristianityVirtueHigherJesus ChristIdealsSubtletyBrothers Karamazov
Book:The Brothers Karamazov (English Russian Edition illustrated): Братья Карамазовы (англо-русская редакция иллюстрированная)
Create image

“Love animals: God has given them the rudiments of thought and joy untroubled. Do not trouble their joy, don't harrass them, don't deprive them of their happiness, don't work against God's intent. Man, do not pride yourself on superiority to animals; they are without sin, and you, with your greatness, defile the earth by your appearance on it, and leave the traces of your foulness after you - alas, it is true of almost every one of us!”

MenLoveEarthJoyGivenNatureReligiousWorkSinAnimalTroubleGreatnessPrideAppearanceVegetarianVeganSuperiorityAlasVegetarianismAnimal Love
Book:The Brothers Karamazov (English Russian Edition illustrated): Братья Карамазовы (англо-русская редакция иллюстрированная)
Create image

“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. When he has no respect for anyone, he can no longer love, and, in order to divert himself, having no love in him, he yields to his impulses, indulges in the lowest forms of pleasure, and behaves in the end like an animal. And it all comes from lying - lying to others and to yourself.”

MenBelieveEndsWisdomTruthFormLyingOrderPoliticsPleasureAnimalHonorLosingImpulseBehaveYieldLowestIndulgeNo LoveIndulge InNo Respect
Author:Fyodor Dostoevsky
Create image

“What tender and devoted mother wouldn't be dismayed and ill with terror at her son's or daughter's stepping even one hair's breath off the beaten track. No, better let him be happy and live in comfort without originality, is what every mother thinks when she rocks the cradle. The only person among us who can fail to reach the general's rank is the original man - in other words, the man who won't be quiet.”

ThinkingMenPersonsMotherCreativityFailingSocietyRocksHe ManSonHairComfortQuietDaughterBreathsOriginalsIllTrackTerrorOriginalityDevotedBeatenCradleDismayed
Author:Fyodor Dostoevsky
Create image

“Man is fond of counting his troubles, but he does not count his joys. If he counted them up as he ought to, he would see that every lot has enough happiness provided for it.”

IfsMenDoeEnoughHappinessJoyTroublePositiveOughtDepressionHappyUpliftingBeing HappyCountingLife HappinessJoy And HappinessJust Be HappyJoy HappinessFeeling HappyLife And HappinessHow To Be HappySelf HappinessSecret To HappinessAttaining HappinessBeing JoyfulBeing DepressedPeople With DepressionFeeling DepressedDepression InspirationalDepressed People
Author:Fyodor Dostoevsky
Create image

“Man only likes to count his troubles, but he does not count his joys.”

MenDoeJoyTroubleGratitudeLikesBeing HappyCountingLife HappinessJoy And HappinessJust Be HappyJoy HappinessFeeling HappyLife And HappinessHow To Be HappySelf HappinessSecret To HappinessAttaining HappinessBeing JoyfulUplifting In Hard TimesBeing DepressedPeople With DepressionFeeling DepressedDepression InspirationalDepressed People
Book:NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND AND THE GRAND INQUISITOR
Create image