Quotessence
Home / Quotes / Quote by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Quote by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Author

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Browse famous quotes and profile details for Fyodor Dostoyevsky. more

You May Also Like

“There is a temptation when one has suffered to say that one has suffered enough. As in, no more. The temptation is to go about creating a form of protection, to insist that you be kept safe from further harm. “Harm” under these conditions becomes nebulous; anything from threats of violence to reminders of past hurts to even experiencing discomfort can meet the criteria of “harmful.”

“Mr. Reese had told him that life, at its core, was a cruel burden because we had the knowledge that we were born to die. We were born with innocent eyes and those eyes had to see pain and death and deceit and violence and heartache. If we were lucky we lived long enough to see most everything we love die. But, he said, being honorable and truthful took a little of the sting out of it. It made life bearable. Mr. Reese said liars and cowards were the worst people to know because they broke your heart in a world that is built to break your heart. They poured gas on an already cruel and barely controllable fire.”

“There are the stubborn stumps of shame, grief that remains unsolvable after all the years, a bag of stones that goes with one wherever one goes and however the hour may call for dancing and for light feet. energies of the world, better than anger, better than bitterness and, because more interesting, more alleviating. And there is the thing that one does, the needle one plies, the work, and within that work a chance to take thoughts that are hot and formless and to place them slowly and with meticulous effort into some shapely heat-retaining form, even as the gods, or nature, or the soundless wheels of time have made forms all across the soft, curved universe—that is to say, having chosen to claim my life, I have made for myself, out of work and love, a handsome life.”

“One or two things are all you need to travel over the blue pond, over the deep roughage of the trees and through the stiff flowers of lightning --- some deep memory of pleasure, some cutting knowledge of pain. 6 But to lift the hoof! For that you need an idea. 7 For years and years I struggled just to love my life. And then the butterfly rose, weightless, in the wind. "Don't love your life too much," it said, and vanished into the world.”

“The Buddha was not full of shit when he said the cause of suffering could be uprooted and that you can put an end to it once and for all. There is a way out of this mess humanity has found itself in. It’s just that the answer to the cause of suffering — and the way to end it — are nothing at all like what you think they are or imagine they should be.”

“The Kingdom of God is being established in this world, absolutely, but it's foolish to think that this is happening through rainbows and unicorns. Instead, Scripture teaches us that we are at war--not against people but against powers and principalities. With our freedom comes risk... We aren't immune from suffering or excused from the experience of being human simply because of our faith... And the truth remains: the crucified God, as personified in Jesus, revealed that God is always on the side of suffering wherever it is found and God's endgame is resurrection.”