Fyodor Dostoyevsky quote: "I love, I can only love the one I've left behind, stained with my blood when, ungrateful wretch that I am, I extinguished myself and shot myself through the heart. But never, never have I ceased to love that one, and even on the night I parted from him I loved him perhaps more poignantly than ever. We can truly love only with suffering and through suffering! We know not how to love otherwise. We know no other love. I want suffering in order to love. I want and thirst this very minute to kiss , with tears streaming down my cheeks, this one and only I have left behind. I don't want and won't accept any other.<br />"

And therefore the idea of serving mankind, of the brotherhood and oneness of people, is fading more ...
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

The whole work of man really seems to consist in nothing but proving to himself every minute that he...
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

Feeling my own humiliation in my heart like the sharp prick of a needle.
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

Right or wrong, it's very pleasant to break something from time to time.
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

Life had stepped into the place of theory and something quite different would work itself out in his...
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

The soul is healed by being with children.
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

The man who has a conscience suffers whilst acknowledging his sin. That is his punishment.
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

It takes something more than intelligence to act intelligently.
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

The more stupid one is, the closer one is to reality. The more stupid one is, the clearer one is. St...
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

Nothing in this world is harder than speaking the truth, nothing easier than flattery.
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

Above all, don't lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a ...
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

I say let the world go to hell, but I should always have my tea.
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

What is hell? I maintain that it is the suffering of being unable to love.
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

If someone proved to me that Christ is outside the truth and that in reality the truth were outside ...
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

The darker the night, the brighter the stars,
The deeper the grief, the closer is God!
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

Man, so long as he remains free, has no more constant and agonizing anxiety than find as quickly as ...
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

Killing myself was a matter of such indifference to me that I felt like waiting for a moment when it...
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

Man only likes to count his troubles; he doesn't calculate his happiness.
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

I love mankind, he said, "but I find to my amazement that the more I love mankind as a whole, the le...
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

People speak sometimes about the "bestial" cruelty of man, but that is terribly unjust and offensive...
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

Since man cannot live without miracles, he will provide himself with miracles of his own making. He ...
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

Poor people are subject to fancies — this is a provision of nature.
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

My God, a moment of bliss. Why, isn't that enough for a whole lifetime?
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

If you want to be respected by others, the great thing is to respect yourself. Only by that, only by...
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

You are told a lot about your education, but some beautiful, sacred memory, preserved since childhoo...
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

Even if we are occupied with important things and even if we attain honor or fall into misfortune, s...
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

It is easier for a Russian to become an atheist than for anyone else in the world.
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

If you like a man's laugh before you know anything of him, you may say with confidence that he is a ...
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

The greatest happiness is to know the source of unhappiness.
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

Happiness does not lie in happiness, but in the achievement of it.
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

Taking a new step, uttering a new word, is what people fear most.
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

If there is no God, everything is permitted.
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

The most pressing question on the problem of faith is whether a man as a civilized being can believe...
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

Neither man or nation can exist without a sublime idea.
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

Lying to ourselves is more deeply ingrained than lying to others.
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

It seems, in fact, as though the second half of a man's life is made up of nothing, but the habits h...
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

Man only likes to count his troubles, but he does not count his joys.
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

To live without Hope is to Cease to live.
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

It is not possible to eat me without insisting that I sing praises of my devourer?
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

Arriving at one goal is the starting point to another.
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

Realists do not fear the results of their study.
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

Love all God's creation, the whole and every grain of sand of it. Love every leaf, every ray of God'...
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

A real gentleman, even if he loses everything he owns, must show no emotion. Money must be so far be...
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

To be too conscious is an illness. A real thorough going illness.
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

Sarcasm: the last refuge of modest and chaste-souled people when the privacy of their soul is coarse...
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering the prisons.
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

A just cause is not ruined by a few mistakes.
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

The secret of man's being is not only to live but to have something to live for.
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

"I think if the devil doesn't exist, then man has created him. He has created him in his own image...
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

If the devil does not exist, and man has therefore created him, he has created him in his own image ...
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

To go wrong in one's own way is better than to go right in someone else's.
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

Nothing is easier than to denounce the evildoer; nothing is more difficult than to understand him.
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

Much unhappiness has come into the world because of bewilderment and things left unsaid.
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

If you wish to glimpse inside a human soul and get to know a man, don't bother analyzing his ways of...
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

I am a fool with a heart but no brains, and you are a fool with brains but no heart; and we’re bot...
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

Schoolboys are a merciless race, individually they are angels, but together, especially in schools, ...
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

You were destined for me. Perhaps as a punishment.
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

The Idiot. I have read it once, and find that I don't remember the events of the book very well--or ...
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

Every man has some reminiscences which he would not tell to everyone, but only to his friends. He ha...
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

Woe to the man who offends a small child!
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

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

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

My brother asked the birds to forgive him: that sounds senseless, but it is right; for all is like a...
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

It was more difficult not to
understand than to understand.
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

Braćo, ne bojte se grehova ljudskih, volite čoveka i u grehu njegovom, jer kad ko voli čoveka gre...
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

What makes a hero? Courage, strength, morality, withstanding adversity? Are these the traits that tr...
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

Be near your brothers. Not just one, but both of them.
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

Equality lies only in human moral dignity. ... Let there be brothers first, then there will be broth...
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

For, after all, you do grow up, you do outgrow your ideals, which turn to dust and ashes, which are ...
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

The fear of appearances is the first symptom of impotence.
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

We're always thinking of eternity as an idea that cannot be understood, something immense. But why m...
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

Whoever has experienced the power and the unrestrained ability to humiliate another human being auto...
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

Pain and suffering are always inevitable for a large intelligence and a deep heart. The really great...
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

The Russian soul is a dark place.
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

It is not the brains that matter most, but that which guides them - the character, the heart, genero...
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

If you want to be respected by others the great thing is to respect yourself. Only by that, only by ...
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

Man has such a predilection for systems and abstract deductions that he is ready to distort the trut...
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

Pain and suffering are always inevitable for a large intelligence and a deep heart.
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

Do you think, you who sold it, that this bottom of yours has been sweet to me? Affliction, I sought ...
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

Deprived of meaningful work, men and women lose their reason for existence; they go stark, raving ma...
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

Love all that has been created by God, both the whole and every grain of sand. Love every leaf and e...
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

There is no subject so old that something new cannot be said about it.
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

Until you have become really, in actual fact, as brother to everyone, brotherhood will not come to p...
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

There is only one thing that I dread: not to be worthy of my sufferings.
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

The mystery of human existence lies not in just staying alive, but in finding something to live for.
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

. . . finally, I couldn't imagine how I could live without books, and I stopped dreaming about marry...
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

Man is a mystery. It needs to be unravelled, and if you spend your whole life unravelling it, don't ...
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

Beauty will save the world
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

Be not forgetful of prayer. Every time you pray, if your prayer is sincere, there will be new feelin...
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

Yet, I didn't understand that she was intentionally disguising her feelings with sarcasm; that was u...
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

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

Men reject their prophets and slay them, but they love their martyrs and honor those they have slain...
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

It is easier for a Russian to become an Atheist, than for any other nationality in the world. And no...
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

Then this God does exist according to you?"
"He does not exist, but He is. In the stone there i...
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

The centripetal force on our planet is still fearfully strong, Alyosha. I have a longing for life, a...
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

Love life more than the meaning of it?
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

The more I love humanity in general the less I love man in particular. In my dreams, I often make pl...
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

And what's strange, what would be marvelous, is not that God should really exist; the marvel is that...
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

I think the devil doesn't exist, but man has created him, he has created him in his own image and li...
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

Kto twierdzi że kocha w ogóle całą ludzkość, kocha prawie zawsze tylko siebie
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

In every idea of genius or in every new human idea, or, more simply still, in every serious human id...
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

God has such gladness every time he sees from heaven that a sinner is praying to Him with all his he...
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

One man doesn't believe in god at all, while the other believes in him so thoroughly that he prays a...
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

It wasn't the New World that mattered...Columbus died almost without seeing it; and not really knowi...
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

I believe that to execute a man for murder is to punish him immeasurably more dreadfully than is equ...
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

Love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing compared to love in dreams.
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

Something new and unexpected, something hitherto unknown and undreamt of, had taken place in him. He...
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

Oh, tell me, who first declared, who first proclaimed that man only does nasty things because he doe...
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

Beauty will save the world.
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

The need for beauty and the [artistic] creation which embodies it is inseparable from man, and witho...
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

Love is a teacher, but one must know how to acquire it, for it is difficult to acquire, it is dearly...
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

You must know that there is nothing higher and stronger and more wholesome and good for life in the ...
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

Remember particularly that you cannot be a judge of anyone. For no one can judge a criminal until he...
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

Without God all things are permitted.
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

And yet I am convinced that man will never give up true suffering- that is, destruction and chaos. W...
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

God knows what is in me in place of me.
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

Grown-up people do not know that a child can give exceedingly good advice even in the most difficult...
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

It is better to be unhappy and know the worst, than to be happy in a fool's paradise.
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

Don’t let us forget that the causes of human actions are usually immeasurably more complex and var...
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

And though I suffer for you, yet it eases my heart to suffer for you.
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

Man, do not pride yourself on your superiority to the animals, for they are without sin, while you, ...
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

What do you think, would not one tiny crime be wiped out by thousands of good deeds?
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

Don’t be overwise; fling yourself straight into life, without deliberation; don’t be afraid - th...
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

People with new ideas, people with the faintest capacity for saying something new, are extremely few...
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

Break what must be broken, once for all, that's all, and take the suffering on oneself.
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

In a morbid condition, dreams are often distinguished by their remarkably graphic, vivid, and extrem...
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

What do you think?" shouted Razumihin, louder than ever, "you think I am attacking them for talking ...
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

Man has it all in his hands, and it all slips through his fingers from sheer cowardice.
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

Truly great men must, I think, experience great sorrow on the earth.
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

Do you understand, sir, do you understand what it means when you have absolutely nowhere to turn?" M...
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

There is nothing in the world more difficult than candor, and nothing easier than flattery. If there...
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

Only to live, to live and live! Life, whatever it may be!
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

We sometimes encounter people, even perfect strangers, who begin to interest us at first sight, some...
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

Man grows used to everything, the scoundrel!
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

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

A hundred suspicions don't make a proof.
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

And the more I drink the more I feel it. That's why I drink too. I try to find sympathy and feeling ...
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

I did not bow down to you, I bowed down to all the suffering of humanity.
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

I used to analyze myself down to the last thread, used to compare myself with others, recalled all t...
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

When reason fails, the devil helps!
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

We sometimes encounter people, even perfect strangers, who begin to interest us at first sight, some...
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

I was ready to leave with every load, with every worthy individual of respectable appearance hiring ...
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to such a pass that he cannot distingui...
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

One of the characters in our story, Gavril Ardalionovitch Ivolgin, belonged to the other category; h...
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

Man does not live by bread alone.
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

Christ knew that by bread alone you cannot reanimate man. If there were no spiritual life, no ideal ...
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

Instead of giving a firm foundation for setting the conscience of man at rest forever, Thou didst ch...
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

It is not as a child that I believe and confess Jesus Christ. My hosanna is born of a furnace of dou...
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

Why did you come in to-night with your heads in the air? 'Make way, we are coming! Give us every rig...
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

When I do leap into the pit, I go headlong with my heels up, and am pleased to be falling in that de...
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

I can see the sun, but even if I cannot see the sun, I know that it exists. And to know that the sun...
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

The awful thing is that beauty is mysterious as well as terrible. God and the devil are fighting the...
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...
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

I can't bear the thought that a man of lofty mind and heart begins with the ideal of the Madonna and...
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

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...
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

But how could you live and have no story to tell?
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

To love is to suffer and there can be no love otherwise.
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

I swear to you gentlemen, that to be overly conscious is a sickness, a real, thorough sickness.
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

Man is sometimes extraordinarily, passionately, in love with suffering...
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

The world says: "You have needs -- satisfy them. You have as much right as the rich and the mighty. ...
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

Often a man endures for several years, submits and suffers the cruellest punishments, and then sudde...
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

I must add... my gratitude to you for the attention with which you have listened to me, for, from my...
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

Lack of originality, everywhere, all over the world, from time immemorial, has always been considere...
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

For a woman, all resurrection, all salvation, from whatever perdition, lies in love; in fact, it is ...
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

In place of the clear and rigid ancient law, You [oh Lord] made man decide about good and evil for h...
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

What is hell? I maintain that it is the suffering of being unable to love
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

If God does not exist, then everything is permitted
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

Love a man, even in his sin, for that love is a likeness of the divine love, and is the summit of lo...
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

Love the animals: God has given them the rudiments of thought and joy untroubled
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

You sensed that you should be following a different path, a more ambitious one, you felt that you we...
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

If you chase several hares at once, you won't overtake any one of them.
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

Not long ago I was much amused by imagining—what if the fancy suddenly took me to kill some one, a...
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

But here I should imagine the most terrible part of the whole punishment is, not the bodily pain at ...
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

If the spirit has passed through a great many sensations, possibly it can no longer be sated with th...
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

The high road is something very, very long, of which one cannot see the end - like human life, like ...
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

It is precisely that requirement of shared worship that has been the principal source of suff...
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

But man is a fickle and disreputable creature and perhaps, like a chess-player, is interested in the...
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

I believe the best definition of man is the ungrateful biped.
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

Although Pulcheria Alexandrovna was forty-three, her face still retained traces of her former beauty...
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

There are seconds, they come only five or six at a time, and you suddenly feel the presence of etern...
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

..., and if one has only one good memory left in one's heart, even that may sometimes be the means o...
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

Indeed, precious memories may remain even of a bad home, if only the heart knows how to find what is...
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

You must know that there is nothing higher and stronger and more wholesome and good for life in the ...
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

At that time I was only twenty-four years old. My life then was already gloomy, disorderly, and soli...
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

Do you suppose, gentlemen, that our children as they grow up and begin to reason can avoid such ques...
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

There is, indeed, nothing more vexing than to be, for example, rich, of good family, of decent appea...
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

There are some people about whom it is difficult to say anything which would describe them immediate...
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

Originality and the feeling of one's own dignity are achieved only through work and struggle.
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

Science which has become a great power in the lastcentury, has analyzed everything divine handed dow...
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

And man has actually invented God. And what’s strange, what would be marvellous, is not that God s...
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

It's not God that I don't accept, Alyosha, only I most respectfully return Him the ticket.
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

Without a firm idea of himself and the purpose of his life, man cannot live, and would sooner destro...
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, 'Make us your slaves, but feed us
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

Innovators and men of genius have almost always been regarded as fools at the beginning (and very of...
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

Отцы и учители, мыслю: "что есть ад?" Рассуждаю
так: "С...
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

But what can a decent man speak of with most pleasure?

Answer: Of himself.

Wel...
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

It's like this,' began the elder. 'All these sentences of hard labour in Siberian prisons, and forme...
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

Generally speaking, our prisoners were capable of loving animals, and if they had been allowed they ...
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

Life [had] replaced logic.
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Share:

Related

More Fyodor Dostoyevsky