Fyodor Dostoyevsky Quotes

We all come out from Gogol's 'Overcoat'.

I am alone, I thought, and they are everybody.

Suffering is the sole origin of consciousness.

Often a man endures for several years, submits and suffers the cruellest punishments, and then suddenly breaks out over some minute trifle, almost nothing at all.

A fool with a heart and no sense is just as unhappy as a fool with sense and no heart.

Power is given only to him who dares to stoop and take it ... one must have the courage to dare.

The fear of appearances is the first symptom of impotence.

Woe to the man who offends a small child!

Don’t let us forget that the causes of human actions are usually immeasurably more complex and varied than our subsequent explanations of them.

My sweetheart! When I think of you, it's as if I'm holding some healing balm to my sick soul, and although i suffer for you, i find that even suffering for you is easy.

Without God all things are permitted.

originality and a feeling of one's own dignity are achieved only through work and struggle.

The prince says that the world will be saved by beauty! And I maintain that the reason he has such playful ideas is that he is in love.

What is most vile and despicable about money is that it even confers talent. And it will do so until the end of the world.

I want to suffer so that I may love.

It is man's unique privilege, among all other organisms. By pursuing falsehood you will arrive at the truth!

Here is a commandment for you: seek happiness in sorrow. Work, work tirelessly.

Whatever distinguishes one lump of flesh from another when we're alive, we're all the same once we're dead. Just used-up shells.

For if there's no everlasting God, there's no such thing as virtue, and there's no need of it.

. . . finally, I couldn't imagine how I could live without books, and I stopped dreaming about marrying that Chinese prince. . . .

Eh, brother, but nature has to be corrected and guided, otherwise we'd all drown in prejudices. Without that there wouldn't be even a single great man.

Ah, Misha, he has a stormy spirit. His mind is in bondage. He is haunted by a great, unsolved doubt. He is one of those who don't want millions, but an answer to their questions.

they may all be drunk at my place, but they're all honest, and though we do lie-because I lie, too-in the end we'll lie our way to the truth

I will put up with any mockery rather than pretend that I am satisfied when I am hungry.

Equality lies only in human moral dignity. ... Let there be brothers first, then there will be brotherhood, and only then will there be a fair sharing of goods among brothers.

People speak sometimes about the "besti*l" 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.

The queen who mended her stockings in prison must have looked every inch a queen and even more a queen than at sumptuous banquets and levees.

What a man need is simply and solely independence volition, whatever that independence may cost and wherever it may lead.

I swear, gentlemen, that to be too conscious is an illness - a real thorough-going illness.

...there is no explaining anything by reasoning and so it is useless to reason.

It seems to me that the whole of human life can be summed up in the one statement that man only exists for the purpose of proving to himself every minute that he is a man and not an organ.

If I had had the power to prevent my own birth I should certainly never have consented to accept existence under such ridiculous conditions.

Crime? What crime? ... My killing a loathsome, harmful louse, a filthy old moneylender woman ... and you call that a crime?

(…)man holds the remedy in his own hands, and lets everything go its own way, simply through cowardice- that is an axiom.

Moreover, in order to understand any man one must be deliberate and careful to avoid forming prejudices and mistaken ideas, which are very difficult to correct and get over afterwards.

The sacrifice of life is, in many cases, the easiest of all sacrifices

And, beginning to grind his teeth again, Pyotr Petrovich admitted that he'd been a fool--but only to himself, of course.

He longed to revenge himself on everyone for his own unseemliness

Another circumstance, too, worried me in those days: that there was no one like me and I was unlike anyone else. "I am alone and they are everyone, " I thought–and pondered.

Nothing helps a man to reform like thinking of the past with regret.

if [God] doesn't exist, man is the chief of the earth, of the universe. Magnificent! Only how is he going to be good without God?

…but it is in despair that the most burning pleasures occur, especially when one is all too highly conscious of the hopelessness of one’s position.

…but it is in despair that the most burning pleasures occur…

Equality is to be found only in the spiritual dignity of man

In Russia, drunks are our kindest people. Our kindest people are also the most drunk.

His mind is in bondage. He is haunted by a great, usolved doubt. He is one of those who doesn't want millions, but an answer to their questions.

You are really angry with me for not having appeared to you in a red glow, with thunder and lightning, with scorched wings

I love it when people lie! Lying is only man's privilege over all other organisms. Lying is what makes me a man.

To love someone means to see them as God intended them.

And what if there are only spiders there, or something of that sort