Dostoyevsky's Quotes: top 100 famous quotes about Dostoyevsky's

Dostoyevsky's Quotes & Sayings

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You're a gentleman," they used to say to him. "You shouldn't have gone murdering people with a hatchet; that's no occupation for a gentleman. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

There's a measure in all things. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

People are alone on this earth - that's the problem! — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

That's just the point: an honest and sensitive man opens his heart, and the man of business goes on eating - and then he eats you up. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Break what must be broken, once for all, that's all, and take the suffering on oneself. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Whoever infringes upon individual 'charity' infringes upon man's nature and scorns his personal dignity — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

The game's not worth the candle — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

It's magnificent, Alyosha, this science! A new man's arising-that I understand ... And yet I am sorry to lose God! — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

If there's no God, all is permitted. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Accept suffering and redeem yourself by it, that's what you must do. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Full freedom will come only when it makes no difference whether to live or not to live. That's the goal for everyone. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

There are cases when one may sometimes burn one's ships and not go home again. Life does not consist only of lunches and dinners and prince S's. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Outwardly it's the truth, but inwardly, a lie! — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Men are made for happiness, and he who is completely happy has the right to say to himself, 'I am doing God's will on earth. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

A novel requires a hero, and here there's a deliberate collection of all the traits for an anti-hero — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

What's more certain than anything is that your pity is even stronger than my love! — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Don't be surprised that I value prejudice, observe certain conventions, seek power
it's because I know I live in an empty society. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

One can't hold one's tongue when one has a feeling, a tangible feeling — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Hang your merit. I don't seek anyone's approbation. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Everything is dead, the dead are everywhere. There are only people, and all around them is silence - that's the earth. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Actually on the point of tears, though I knew perfectly well at that moment that all this was out of Pushkin's Silvio and Lermontov's Masquerade. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Schoolchildren are merciless people: separately they're God's angels, but together, especially — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

It is almost better to tell your own lies than somebody else's truth; in the first case you are a man, in the second you are no better than a parrot! — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Consciousness is man's greatest misfortune, still I know that man loves it and will not exchange it for any satisfactions. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

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

The best way to keep a prisoner from escaping is to make sure he never knows he's in prison. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

There is a great and unresolved thought in him. He's one of those who don't need millions, but need to resolve their thought. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

It's not God that I don't accept, Alyosha, only I most respectfully return him the ticket. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

One life passed, another began, then that passed and a third began, and there's still no end. All the ends are cut off as if with a pair of scissors. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

He never did anything to me it's true, but I once played a most shameless nasty trick on him, and the moment I did it, I immediately hated him for it. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Voltaire's Si Dieu n'existait pas , il faudrait l'inventer ("If God did not exist, he would have to be invented"). — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Never trust a woman's tears, Alexey Fyodorovitch. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

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

Anyone who can appease a man's conscience can take his freedom away from him. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

It's not miracles that generate faith, but faith that generates miracles — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

To care only for well-being seems to me positively ill-bred. Whether it's good or bad, it is sometimes very pleasant, too, to smash things. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Where's the bit about Lazarus? he asked. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Still, if there was anything, it came about by no one else's power save the divine will. Everything is from God. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

And you still did not think of washing your hands even as you entered Mr. Perkhotin's? In other words, you were not afraid of arousing suspicion? — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

We all come out from Gogol's 'Overcoat'. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

And how can one love two at once? With two different kinds of love? That's interesting ... poor idiot — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

She's drunk herself out of her senses, — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

The secret of man's being is not only to live but to have something to live for. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

A man's perishing here, a man's vanishing from his own sight here, and can't control himself
what sort of wedding can there be! — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

What's most revolting is that one is really sad! No, it's better at home. Here at least one blames others for everything and excuses oneself. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

A kiss on the lips and a dagger in the heart,' as in Schiller's Robbers.7 — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Realism that is limited to the end of one's nose is more dangerous than the most insane fantasticality, because it's blind. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

As a piece of literacy criticism, Freud's best writing is about Dostoyevsky. It's a kind of displaced literacy criticism. — Dennis Potter

Originality and a feeling of one's own dignity are achieved only through work and struggle. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

He loves you, that's what it is; he loves you so much. And now he is particularly worried. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

And indeed, what aim in life is more important and sacred than a father's? To what should one adhere, if not to one's family? — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

If he's honest, he'll steal; if he's human, he'll murder; if he's faithful, he'll deceive. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Karamazov, we love you! a voice, which seemed to be Kartashov's, exclaimed irrepressibly. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Pyotr Petrovitch stole a glance at Raskolnikov. Their eyes met, and the fire in Raskolnikov's seemed ready to reduce him to ashes — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

It's in despair that you find the sharpest pleasures, particularly when you are most acutely aware of the hopelessness of your position. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

You see, there's a theory current you're insane, or you lean strongly in that direction. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

It's because I chatter that I do nothing. Or perhaps it is that I chatter because I do nothing. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

As the saying goes
life's a thing that none but fools would keep. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Grigory decided then, once for all, that "the woman's talking nonsense, for every woman is dishonest, — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

In despair there are the most intense enjoyments, especially when one is acutely conscious of the hopelessness of one's position. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Don't think I'm talking nonsense because I'm drunk. I'm not a bit drunk. Brandy's all very well, but I need two bottles to make me drunk. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

It's your rich life," Alyosha said softly. "Why, is it better to be poor?" "Yes, it is. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

People talk sometimes of bestial cruelty, but that's a great injustice to the beasts; a beast can never be so cruel as a man, so artistically cruel. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

The second half of a man's life is made up of nothing but the habits he has acquired during the first half. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

We are not in a mincing lady's boudoir; we are, as it were, two abstract beings in a balloon, who have met in order to speak out the truth. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

But ... that's absurd!' he cried, flushing. 'Your poem is in praise of Jesus, not in blame of Him- as you meant it to be. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

You're Sappho, I'm Phaon, agreed.
But there's one thing still troubling me:
You don't know your way to the sea. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

It's the moon that makes it so still, weaving some mystery. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

And if there's love, you can do without happiness too. Even with sorrow, life is sweet. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

To talk nonsense in one's own way is almost better than to talk a truth that's someone else's — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

A man is no example for a woman. It's a different thing. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Well, set the monster free ... he's begun his hymn, because he finds it all so easy ... but I'd give a quadrillion quadrillion for two seconds of joy. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

You're necessary to me, and that's why I've come to you — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

To love one's neighbor and not to despise him is impossible. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

I tell you, sir, it's very easy for Pyotr Stepanovich to live in the world, because he imagines a man and then lives with him the way he imagined him. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

It was like a dream in which one is being pursued, nearly caught and will be killed, and is rooted to the spot and cannot even move one's arms. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Good Lord, only a moment of bliss? Isn't such a moment sufficient for the whole of a man's life? — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Well, it's not a disaster, is it? Man, too, comes to his end, and here we are making a fuss about a clay pot! — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Hm ... yes, all is in a man's hands and he lets it all slip from cowardice, that's an axiom — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

They understood nothing, none of life's realities, and, I swear to you, this was what made me most indignant. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

He doesn't have so much learning ... or any special education either; he's silent, and he grins at you silently
that's how he gets by. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

FYODOR MIKHAYLOVICH DOSTOYEVSKY was born in Moscow in 1821, the second of a physician's seven children. When — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

What is the use of Christ's words, unless we set an example? — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Why, you are so eaten up with pride and vanity that you'll end by eating up one another, that's what I prophecy. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

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

If he's alive he has everything in his power! Whose fault is it he doesn't understand that — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Not everything can be told in words, certain things it's better never to tell. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Two times two will be four even without my will. Is that what you call man's free will? — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

It's not God that I do not accept, you understand, it is this world of God's, created by God, that I do not accept and cannot agree to accept. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Delicacy and dignity are taught by one's own heart, not by a dancing master. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

it is said 'thou shalt not kill,' is he to be killed because he murdered some one else? No, it is not right, it's an impossible theory. I — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

It's always worthwhile speaking to a clever man. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Never trust a woman's tears, Alyosha. I am never for the woman in such cases. I am always on the side of the men. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

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

I looked at her for three seconds, or five perhaps, with fearful hatred-that hate which is only a hair's-breath from love, from the maddest love! — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

One can love one's neighbours in the abstract, or even at a distance, but at close quarters it's almost impossible. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

What's done in a hurry is never well done. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Trifles, trifles are what matter! Why, it's just such trifles that always ruin everything ... . — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

That's precisely what my novel is about. It's called Demons, and it's a description of how these demons entered the herd of swine. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

My God, a whole moment of happiness! Is that too little for the whole of a man's life? — Fyodor Dostoyevsky