100 Quotes by Fyodor Dostoevsky

Pass us by, and forgive us our happiness (Meaning)

God knows what lives in me in place of me. (Quote Meaning)

God is the pain of the fear of death (Meaning)

We all come out from Gogol's 'Overcoat'. (Quote Meaning)

If there is no God, everything is permitted. (Meaning)

Fathers, provoke not your children to wrath. (Quote Meaning)

The Russian soul is a dark place. (Meaning)

There is no virtue if there is no immortality. (Quote Meaning)

I want to suffer so that I may love. (Meaning)

Only to live, to live and live! Life, whatever it may be! (Quote Meaning)

Walking along the crowded row He met the one he used to know. (Meaning)

Catch several hares and you won't catch one. (Quote Meaning)

There is not a thing that is more positive than bread. (Meaning)

One can fall in love and still hate. (Quote Meaning)

Love life more than the meaning of it? (Meaning)

They were like two enemies in love with one another. (Quote Meaning)

I am alone, I thought, and they are everybody. (Meaning)

Can a man of perception respect himself at all? (Quote Meaning)

I am too young and I've loved you too much. (Meaning)

Man grows used to everything, the scoundrel! (Quote Meaning)

Above all, do not lie to yourself. (Meaning)

Only by self-respect will you compel others to respect you. (Quote Meaning)

I have a plan-to go mad. (Meaning)

If there were no God, he would have to be invented. (Quote Meaning)

The consciousness of life is higher than life. (Meaning)

If not reason, then the devil. (Quote Meaning)

With love one can live even without happiness. (Meaning)

The more I love humanity in general, the less I love man in particular. (Quote Meaning)

Reason is the slave of passion. (Meaning)

Happiness does not lie in happiness, but in the achievement of it. (Quote Meaning)

Realists do not fear the results of their study. (Meaning)

To love someone means to see him as God intended him. (Quote Meaning)

I want to suffer and be purified by suffering! (Meaning)

Compassion is the chief law of human existence. (Quote Meaning)

This is my last message to you: in sorrow, seek happiness. (Meaning)

Suffering is the sole origin of consciousness. (Quote Meaning)

It's the great mystery of human life that old grief passes gradually into quiet, tender joy. (Meaning)

Every man has some reminiscences which he would not tell to everyone, but only to his friends. He has others which he would not reveal even to his friends, but only to himself, and that in secret. But finally there are still others which a man is even afraid to tell himself. (Quote Meaning)

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. (Meaning)

If you were to destroy in mankind the belief in immortality, not only love but every living force maintaining the life of the world would at once be dried up. (Quote Meaning)

There is no subject so old that something new cannot be said about it. (Meaning)

Lying to ourselves is more deeply ingrained than lying to others. (Quote Meaning)

Beauty will save the world. (Meaning)

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

Pain and suffering are always inevitable for a large intelligence and a deep heart. (Quote Meaning)

Love the animals, love the plants, love everything. If you love everything, you will perceive the divine mystery in things. Once you perceive it, you will begin to comprehend it better every day. And you will come at last to love the whole world with an all-embracing love.

The mystery of human existence lies not in just staying alive, but in finding something to live for. (Meaning)

Life is a gift, life is happiness, every minute can be an eternity of happiness.

A man who lies to himself, and believes his own lies becomes unable to recognize truth, either in himself or in anyone else, and he ends up losing respect for himself and for others. When he has no respect for anyone, he can no longer love, and, in order to divert himself, having no love in him, he yields to his impulses, indulges in the lowest forms of pleasure, and behaves in the end like an animal. And it all comes from lying - lying to others and to yourself.

If you wish to glimpse inside a human soul and get to know a man ... just watch him laugh. If he laughs well, he's a good man.

What is hell? I maintain that it is the suffering of being unable to love. (Quote Meaning)

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

Learning to love is hard and we pay dearly for it. It takes hard work and a long apprenticeship, for it is not just for a moment that we must learn to love, but forever.

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.

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

The darker the night, the brighter the stars, The deeper the grief, the closer is God! (Meaning)

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

The soul is healed by being with children. (Quote Meaning)

It takes something more than intelligence to act intelligently. (Meaning)

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

You are told a lot about your education, but some beautiful, sacred memory, preserved since childhood, is perhaps the best education of all. If a man carries many such memories into life with him, he is saved for the rest of his days. And even if only one good memory is left in our hearts, it may also be the instrument of our salvation one day.

Don’t be overwise; fling yourself straight into life, without deliberation; don’t be afraid - the flood will bear you to the bank and set you safe on your feet again.

The most offensive is not their lying - one can always forgive lying - lying is a delightful thing, for it leads to truth - what is offensive is that they lie and worship their own lying.

Destroy my desires, eradicate my ideals, show me something better, and I will follow you.

If everything on earth were rational, nothing would happen. (Quote Meaning)

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. (Meaning)

Perhaps I really regard myself as an intelligent man only because throughout my entire life I've never been able to start or finish anything.

Only through suffering can we find ourselves. (Quote Meaning)

The more you succeed in loving, the more you'll be convinced at the existence of God and the immortality of your soul.

There is no sin , and there can be no sin on all the earth , which the Lord will not forgive to the truly repentant! Man cannot commit a sin so great as to exhaust the infinite love of God . Can there be a sin which could exceed the love of God?

But how could you live and have no story to tell? (Meaning)

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

A society should be judged not by how it treats its outstanding citizens but by how it treats its criminals.

She looked much younger than her age, indeed, which is almost always the case with women who retain serenity of spirit, sensitiveness and pure sincere warmth of heart to old age.

Man is sometimes extraordinarily, passionately, in love with suffering... (Quote Meaning)

The greatest happiness is to know the source of unhappiness. (Meaning)

The more incompetent one feels, the more eager he is to fight.

Humanity can live without science, it can live without bread, but it cannot live without beauty. Without beauty, there would be nothing left to do in this life. Here the secret lies. Here lies the entire story.

I gave up caring about anything, and all the problems disappeared. (Quote Meaning)

The cleverest of all, in my opinion, is the man who calls himself a fool at least once a month. (Meaning)

I don't need money, or, better, it's not money that I need; it's not even power; I need only what is obtained by power and simply cannot be obtained without power: the solitary and calm awareness of strength! That is the fullest definition of freedom, which the world so struggles over!

The man who is happy is fulfilling the purpose of existence

Only one thing matters, one thing; to be able to dare! (Quote Meaning)

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.

They tease me now, telling me it was only a dream. But does it matter whether it was a dream or reality, if the dream made known to me the truth?

The world will be saved by beauty.

Reason and Knowledge have always played a secondary, subordinate, auxiliary role in the life of peoples, and this will always be the case. A people is shaped and driven forward by an entirely different kind of force, one which commands and coerces them and the origin of which is obscure and inexplicable despite the reality of its presence.

What would life be if we had no courage to attempt anything?

Taking a new step, uttering a new word, is what people fear most. The real work of a man is not to discover what he can achieve, but to find out what he is suited for. (Meaning)

To love is to suffer and there can be no love otherwise. (Quote Meaning)

You will burn and you will burn out; you will be healed and come back again.

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

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.

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

It seems, in fact, as though the second half of a man's life is made up of nothing, but the habits he has accumulated during the first half.

If one wanted to crush and destroy a man entirely, to mete out to him the most terrible punishment, all one would have to do would be to make him do work that was completely and utterly devoid of usefulness and meaning.

There is immeasurably more left inside than what comes out in words.

My friend, the truth is always implausible, did you know that? To make the truth more plausible, it's absolutely necessary to mix a bit of falsehood with it. People have always done so.

He who masters the grey everyday is a hero. (Meaning)

Above all, avoid falsehood, every kind of falsehood, especially falseness to yourself. Watch over your own deceitfulness and look into it every hour, every minute.

From a hundred rabbits you can't make a horse.

Every blade of grass, every insect, ant, and golden bee, all so amazingly know their path, though they have not intelligence, they bear witness to the mystery of God and continually accomplish it themselves.

You cannot imagine what sorrow and anger seize one's whole soul when a great idea, which one has long and piously revered, is picked up by some bunglers and dragged into the street, to more fools like themselves, and one suddenly meets it in the flea market, unrecognizable, dirty, askew, absurdly presented, without proportion, without harmony, a toy for stupid children.

My soul bleeds and the blood steadily, silently, disturbingly slowly, swallows me whole.

To be in love is not the same as loving. You can be in love with a woman and still hate her.

Whoever has experienced the power and the unrestrained ability to humiliate another human being automatically loses his own sensations. Tyranny is a habit, it has its own organic life, it develops finally into a disease. The habit can kill and coarsen the very best man or woman to the level of a beast. Blood and power intoxicate ... the return of the human dignity, repentance and regeneration becomes almost impossible.

The man who lies to himself can be more easily offended than anyone else. You know it is sometimes very pleasant to take offense, isn't it? A man may know that nobody has insulted him, but that he has invented the insult for himself, has lied and exaggerated to make it picturesque, has caught at a word and made a mountain out of a molehill--he knows that himself, yet he will be the first to take offense, and will revel in his resentment till he feels great pleasure in it.

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

Love animals: God has given them the rudiments of thought and joy untroubled. Do not trouble their joy, don't harrass them, don't deprive them of their happiness, don't work against God's intent. Man, do not pride yourself on superiority to animals; they are without sin, and you, with your greatness, defile the earth by your appearance on it, and leave the traces of your foulness after you - alas, it is true of almost every one of us!

The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons. (Quote Meaning)

If you want to overcome the whole world, overcome yourself. (Meaning)

My life is ending, I know that well, but every day that is left me I feel how my earthly life is in touch with a new infinite, unknown, but approaching life, the nearness of which sets my soul quivering with rapture, my mind glowing and my heart weeping with joy.

You can be sincere and still be stupid. (Quote Meaning)

Man is fond of counting his troubles but he does not count his joys. (Meaning)

If God does not exist, then everything is permissible. (Quote Meaning)

To love another person is to see them as God intended them to be.

A real gentleman, even if he loses everything he owns, must show no emotion. Money must be so far beneath a gentleman that it is hardly worth troubling about.

By interpreting freedom as the propagation and immediate gratification of needs, people distort their own nature, for they engender in themselves a multitude of pointless and foolish desires, habits, and incongruous stratagems. Their lives are motivated only by mutual envy, sensuality, and ostentation.

Wealth is the number of things one can do without. (Meaning)

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

A hundred suspicions don't make a proof. (Quote Meaning)

Love all God’s creation, both the whole and every grain of sand. Love every leaf, every ray of light. Love the animals, love the plants, love each separate thing. If thou love each thing thou wilt perceive the mystery of God in all; and when once thou perceive this, thou wilt thenceforward grow every day to a fuller understanding of it: until thou come at last to love the whole world with a love that will then be all-embracing and universal.

At first, art imitates life. Then life will imitate art. Then life will find its very existence from the arts.

People really do like seeing their best friends humiliated; a large part of the friendship is based on humiliation; and that is an old truth well known to all intelligent people.

The death of a child is the greatest reason to doubt the existence of God.

What man wants is simply independent choice, whatever that independence may cost and wherever it may lead.

Man is a creature that can get accustomed to anything, and I think that is the best definition of him.

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?

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

Totally without hope one cannot live. To live without hope is to cease to live. Hell is hopelessness. It is no accident that above the entrance to Dante's hell is the inscription: "Leave behind all hope, you who enter here."

Above all, don't lie to yourself.

Nature doesn't ask your permission; it doesn't care about your wishes, or whether you like its laws or not. You're obliged to accept it as it is, and consequently all its results as well.

It is not the brains that matter most, but that which guides them — the character, the heart, generous qualities, progressive ideas.

If you can put the question, 'Am I or am I not responsible for my acts?' then you are responsible.

A single day is sufficient for a man to discover what happiness is.

Besides, nowadays, almost all capable people are terribly afraid of being ridiculous, and are miserable because of it.

To live without Hope is to Cease to live. (Meaning)

Love is such a priceless treasure that you can buy the whole world with it, and redeem not only your own but other people's sins. Go, and do not be afraid.

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

To begin with unlimited freedom is to end with unlimited despotism.

Talking nonsense is man's only privilege that distinguishes him from all other organisms.

If there is no God, then I am God. (Quote Meaning)

Suffering is part and parcel of extensive intelligence and a feeling heart.

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

Only the heart knows how to find what is precious. (Meaning)

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

Sarcasm: the last refuge of modest and chaste-souled people when the privacy of their soul is coarsely and intrusively invaded.

A new philosophy, a new way of life, is not given for nothing. It has to be paid dearly for and only acquired with much patience and great effort

Believe to the end, even if all men went astray and you were left the only one faithful; bring your offering even then and praise God in your loneliness.

To think too much is a disease. (Quote Meaning)

Right attitudes produces right action

In the realist, faith is not born from miracles, but miracles from faith.

If you love everything, you will perceive the divine mystery of things.

There are things which a man is afraid to tell even to himself, and every decent man has a number of such things stored away in his mind.

Life is paradise, and we are all in paradise, but we refuse to see it. (Meaning)

Everything passes, only truth remains. (Quote Meaning)

God has such gladness every time he sees from heaven that a sinner is praying to Him with all his heart, as a mother has when she sees the first smile on her baby's face.

A man who lies to himself, and believes his own lies, becomes unable to recognize truth, either in himself or in anyone else, and he ends up losing respect for himself and for others.

Obedience, fasting, and prayer are laughed at, yet only through them lies the way to real true freedom. I cut off my superfluous and unnecessary desires, I subdue my proud and wanton will and chastise it with obedience, and with God's help I attain freedom of spirit and with it spiritual joy.

Be the sun and all will see you. (Meaning)

Luxuries are easy to take up but very difficult to give up

Through error you come to the truth! I am a man because I err! You never reach any truth without making fourteen mistakes and very likely a hundred and fourteen.

Yes, that's right... love should come before logic ... Only then will man come to understand the meaning of life.

To cook your hare you must first catch it.

For broad understanding and deep feeling, you need pain and suffering.

Life is what matters, life alone - the continuous, eternal process of discovering life - and not the discovery itself.

All people seem to be divided into 'ordinary' and 'extraordinary'. The ordinary people must lead a life of strict obedience and have no right to transgress the law because they are ordinary. Whereas the extraordinary people have the right to commit any crime they like and transgress the law in any way just because they happen to be extraordinary.

Everything seems stupid when it fails.

Taking a new step is what people fear most.

Be not forgetful of prayer. Every time you pray, if your prayer is sincere, there will be new feeling and new meaning in it, which will give you fresh courage, and you will understand that prayer is an education.

I always liked side-paths, little dark back-alleys behind the main road- there one finds adventures and surprises, and precious metal in the dirt.

Hell is the inability to love. (Quote Meaning)

Never mind a little dirt, if the goal is splendid!

Two and two make four. Nature doesn't ask your advice. She isn't interested in your preferences or whether or not you approve of her laws. You must accept nature as she is with all the consequences that that implies.

There is only one thing that I dread: not to be worthy of my sufferings. (Meaning)

It's not miracles that generate faith, but faith that generates miracles.

The formula 'Two and two make five' is not without its attractions. (Quote Meaning)

I utter what you would not dare think (Meaning)

Life is in ourselves and not in the external. (Quote Meaning)

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

Let us be servants in order to be leaders.

I'm drunk but truthful.

Sorrow compressed my heart, and I felt I would die, and then... Well, then I woke up.

The fear of appearances is the first symptom of impotence. (Meaning)

Every man needs a place to go to.

When reason fails, the devil helps! (Quote Meaning)

Happiness lies not in happiness but only in the attempt to achieve it.

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