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Fyodor Dostoevsky

Fyodor Dostoevsky Quotes

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Famous Fyodor Dostoevsky Quotes

“Now I did not say to you that I don't believe at all!' he finally shouted. 'I'm letting you know, purely and simply, that I'm an unhappy, boring book and nothing more, for the time being, for the time being. But let my name perish! You're what ... we're discussing, not me... I am a man without talent, and all I can do is spill my blood and nothing more, like any man without talent. Let my blood perish as well!”

PhilosophySufferingBeliefEmotionalDespairMortalityExistentialIntrospectionLiterarySelf Identity
Book:Demons
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“Your life, Katerina, will be spent in painful brooding over your own feelings, your own heroism, and your own suffering. But in the end that suffering will be softened and will pass into contemplation of the fulfillment of a bold and proud design. Yea, proud it certainly is, and desperate in any case, but a triumph for you. And the consciousness of it all will at last be a source of complete satisfaction and will make you resigned to something else.”

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Book:The Brothers Karamazov
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“And why are you so firmly and triumphantly certain that only what is normal and positive - in short, only well-being - is good for man? Is reason mistaken about what is good? After all, perhaps prosperity isn't the only thing that pleases mankind, perhaps he is just as attracted to suffering. Perhaps suffering is just as good for him as prosperity. Sometimes a man is intensely, even passionately, attached to suffering - that is a fact. About this there is no need to consult universal history: ask yourself, if you are a man and have ever lived even in some degree. As for my own personal opinion, I find it somehow unseemly to love only well-being. Whether it's a good thing or a bad thing, smashing things is also sometimes very pleasant.”

SufferingPsychologyDestructionProsperity
Book:Notes from Underground & The Double
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“So against the grain I serve to produce events and do what’s irrational because I am commanded to. For all their indisputable intelligence, men take this farce as something serious, and that is their tragedy. They suffer, of course… but then they live, they live a real life, not a fantastic one, for suffering is life. Without suffering what would be the pleasure of it?”

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Book:The Brothers Karamazov
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“Why, the whole world of knowledge is not worth that child's prayer to 'dear, kind God'! I say nothing of the sufferings of grown-up people, they have eaten the apple, damn them, and the devil take them all! But these little ones! The Brothers Karamazov Ivan to Alyosha, on the suffering and torture of children, " Book V - Pro and Contra, Chapter 4 - Rebellion.”

ChildrenGodSufferingFaithCommunityNihilismTheodicyThe Brothers Karamazov
Author:Fyodor Dostoevsky
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“Man is sometimes extraordinarily, passionately, in love with suffering.”

MenLoveSometimesSufferingHuman NatureSentimentalNotes From The Underground
Book:The Greatest Works of Dostoevsky: Crime and Punishment + The Brother's Karamazov + The Idiot + Notes from Underground + The Gambler + Demons (The Possessed / The Devils)
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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.”

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Author:Fyodor Dostoevsky
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“Pain and suffering are always inevitable for a large intelligence and a deep heart. The really great men must, I think, have great sadness on earth.”

ThinkingMenInspirationalHeartEarthPainSufferingSadnessSorrowSadIntelligencePunishmentInevitableGreat MenReally GreatDeep ThoughtAccuracyInevitabilityPain And SufferingSufferersCrime And PunishmentBig HeartLong SufferingPain And SorrowSuffering And PainDeepest FeelingsPain SufferingRaskolnikovDeep Heart
Book:The 10 Greatest Books of All Time
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“And why are you so firmly, so triumphantly, convinced that only the normal and the positive--in other words, only what is conducive to welfare--is for the advantage of man? Is not reason in error as regards advantage? Does not man, perhaps, love something besides well-being? Perhaps he is just as fond of suffering? Perhaps suffering is just as great a benefit to him as well-being? Man is sometimes extraordinarily, passionately, in love with suffering, and that is a fact.”

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Author:Fyodor Dostoevsky
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“It sometimes happened that you might be familiar with a man for several years thinking he was a wild animal, and you would regard him with contempt. And then suddenly a moment would arrive when some uncontrollable impulse would lay his soul bare, and you would behold in it such riches, such sensitivity and warmth, such a vivid awareness of its own suffering and the suffering of others, that the scales would fall from your eyes and at first you would hardly be able to believe what you had seen and heard. The reverse also happens.”

ThinkingMenYearsFirstsBelieveSoulSometimesMomentsMightHappensEyeAbleSufferingFallAnimalHappenedHeardAwarenessRegardLaysRichesScalesFamiliarImpulseWarmthContemptReverseSensitivityVividWild AnimalUncontrollableSuffering Of Others
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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“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!"”

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Book:The Brothers Karamazov
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