“Above all, don’t lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky
“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.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky
“To go wrong in one’s own way is better than to go right in someone else’s.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky
“What is hell? I maintain that it is the suffering of being unable to love.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky
“The darker the night, the brighter the stars,
The deeper the grief, the closer is God!”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky
“I say let the world go to hell, but I should always have my tea.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky
“Man only likes to count his troubles; he doesn’t calculate his happiness.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky
“The soul is healed by being with children.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky
“I love mankind, he said, “but I find to my amazement that the more I love mankind as a whole, the less I love man in particular.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky
“We sometimes encounter people, even perfect strangers, who begin to interest us at first sight, somehow suddenly, all at once, before a word has been spoken.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky
“People speak sometimes about the “bestial” cruelty of man, but that is terribly unjust and offensive to beasts, no animal could ever be so cruel as a man, so artfully, so artistically cruel.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky
“Talking nonsense is the sole privilege mankind possesses over the other organisms. It’s by talking nonsense that one gets to the truth! I talk nonsense, therefore I’m human”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky
“It takes something more than intelligence to act intelligently.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky
“The mystery of human existence lies not in just staying alive, but in finding something to live for.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky
“But how could you live and have no story to tell?”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky
“Taking a new step, uttering a new word, is what people fear most.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky
“Much unhappiness has come into the world because of bewilderment and things left unsaid.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky
“The world says: “You have needs — satisfy them. You have as much right as the rich and the mighty. Don’t hesitate to satisfy your needs; indeed, expand your needs and demand more.” This is the worldly doctrine of today. And they believe that this is freedom. The result for the rich is isolation and suicide, for the poor, envy and murder.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky
“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. I feel I know you so well that I couldn’t have known you better if we’d been friends for twenty years. You won’t fail me, will you? Only two minutes, and you’ve made me happy forever. Yes, happy. Who knows, perhaps you’ve reconciled me with myself, resolved all my doubts.
When I woke up it seemed to me that some snatch of a tune I had known for a long time, I had heard somewhere before but had forgotten, a melody of great sweetness, was coming back to me now. It seemed to me that it had been trying to emerge from my soul all my life, and only now-
If and when you fall in love, may you be happy with her. I don’t need to wish her anything, for she’ll be happy with you. May your sky always be clear, may your dear smile always be bright and happy, and may you be for ever blessed for that moment of bliss and happiness which you gave to another lonely and grateful heart. Isn’t such a moment sufficient for the whole of one’s life?”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky
“Nothing in this world is harder than speaking the truth, nothing easier than flattery.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky
“To love someone means to see them as God intended them.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky
“Right or wrong, it’s very pleasant to break something from time to time.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky
“Man is a mystery. It needs to be unravelled, and if you spend your whole life unravelling it, don’t say that you’ve wasted time. I am studying that mystery because I want to be a human being.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky
“I can see the sun, but even if I cannot see the sun, I know that it exists. And to know that the sun is there – that is living.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky
“The awful thing is that beauty is mysterious as well as terrible. God and the devil are fighting there and the battlefield is the heart of man.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky
“Man is sometimes extraordinarily, passionately, in love with suffering…”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky
“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.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky
“You can be sincere and still be stupid.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky
“It is not the brains that matter most, but that which guides them — the character, the heart, generous qualities, progressive ideas.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky
“Beauty will save the world”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky
“Don’t let us forget that the causes of human actions are usually immeasurably more complex and varied than our subsequent explanations of them.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky
“Pain and suffering are always inevitable for a large intelligence and a deep heart.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky
“I think the devil doesn’t exist, but man has created him, he has created him in his own image and likeness.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky
“It is better to be unhappy and know the worst, than to be happy in a fool’s paradise.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky
“To love is to suffer and there can be no love otherwise.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky
“If you want to be respected by others, the great thing is to respect yourself. Only by that, only by self-respect will you compel others to respect you.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky
“Besides, nowadays, almost all capable people are terribly afraid of being ridiculous, and are miserable because of it.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky
“This is my last message to you: in sorrow, seek happiness.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky
“Nothing is easier than to denounce the evildoer; nothing is more difficult than to understand him.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky
“I used to analyze myself down to the last thread, used to compare myself with others, recalled all the smallest glances, smiles and words of those to whom I’d tried to be frank, interpreted everything in a bad light, laughed viciously at my attempts ‘to be like the rest’ –and suddenly, in the midst of my laughing, I’d give way to sadness, fall into ludicrous despondency and once again start the whole process all over again – in short, I went round and round like a squirrel on a wheel.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky
“Sarcasm: the last refuge of modest and chaste-souled people when the PRIVACY of their soul is coarsely and intrusively invaded.”
― Dostoyevsky Fyodor
“The more stupid one is, the closer one is to reality. The more stupid one is, the clearer one is. Stupidity is brief and artless, while intelligence squirms and hides itself. Intelligence is unprincipled, but stupidity is honest and straightforward.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky
“Love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing compared to love in dreams.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky
“For, after all, you do grow up, you do outgrow your ideals, which turn to dust and ashes, which are shattered into fragments; and if you have no other life, you just have to build one up out of these fragments. And all the time your soul is craving and longing for something else. And in vain does the dreamer rummage about in his old dreams, raking them over as though they were a heap of cinders, looking in these cinders for some spark, however tiny, to fan it into a flame so as to warm his chilled blood by it and revive in it all that he held so dear before, all that touched his heart, that made his blood course through his veins, that drew tears from his eyes, and that so splendidly deceived him!”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky
“Yet, I didn’t understand that she was intentionally disguising her feelings with sarcasm; that was usually the last resort of people who are timid and chaste of heart, whose souls have been coarsely and impudently invaded; and who, until the last moment, refuse to yield out of pride and are afraid to express their own feelings to you.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky
“My God, a moment of bliss. Why, isn’t that enough for a whole lifetime?”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky
“There is something at the bottom of every new human thought, every thought of genius, or even every earnest thought that springs up in any brain, which can never be communicated to others, even if one were to write volumes about it and were explaining one’s idea for thirty-five years; there’s something left which cannot be induced to emerge from your brain, and remains with you forever; and with it you will die, without communicating to anyone perhaps the most important of your ideas.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky
“When reason fails, the devil helps!”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky
“The cleverest of all, in my opinion, is the man who calls himself a fool at least once a month.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky
“If you want to overcome the whole world, overcome yourself.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky
“I did not bow down to you, I bowed down to all the suffering of humanity.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky