Fyodor dostoevsky quotes

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

Let us be servants in order to be leaders.

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

The essence of religious feeling does not come under any sort of reasoning or atheism, and has nothing to do with any crimes or misdemeanors. There is something else here, and there will always be something else - something that the atheists will for ever slur over; they will always be talking of something else.

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

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.

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

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

A hundred suspicions don't make a proof.

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.

The greatest happiness is to know the source of unhappiness.

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.

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

Right attitudes produces right action

We must never forget that human motives are generally far more complicated than we are apt to suppose, and that we can very rarely accurately describe the motives of another.

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

Only through suffering can we find ourselves.

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

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

If you want to overcome the whole world, overcome yourself.

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.

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.

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

And so I ask myself: 'Where are your dreams?' And I shake my head and mutter: 'How the years go by!' And I ask myself again: 'What have you done with those years? Where have you buried your best moments? Have you really lived? Look,' I say to myself, 'how cold it is becoming all over the world!' And more years will pass and behind them will creep grim isolation. Tottering senility will come hobbling, leaning on a crutch, and behind these will come unrelieved boredom and despair. The world of fancies will fade, dreams will wilt and die and fall like autumn leaves from the trees. . . .

Be the sun and all will see you.

Power is given only to those who dare to lower themselves and pick it up. Only one thing matters, one thing; to be able to dare!

Put away your gods and come and worship ours, or we will kill you and your gods!

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.

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

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

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

Everything seems stupid when it fails.

Man is fond of counting his troubles, but he does not count his joys. If he counted them up as he ought to, he would see that every lot has enough happiness provided for it.

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?

If there is no God, then I am God.

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

To think too much is a disease.

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

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

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.

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.

Wealth is the number of things one can do without.

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.

If God does not exist, then everything is permissible.

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?

I utter what you would not dare think

If you love all things, you will also attain the divine mystery that is in all things. For then your ability to perceive the truth will grow every day, and your mind will open itself to an all-embracing love

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.

Above all, don't lie to yourself.

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

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.

The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to such a pass that he cannot distinguish the truth within him.

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

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

It takes something more than intelligence to act intelligently.

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.

Everything passes, only truth remains.

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.

When I look back on my past and think how much time I wasted on nothing, how much time has been lost in futilities, errors, laziness, incapacity to live; how little I appreciated it, how many times I sinned against my heart and soul-then my heart bleeds. Life is a gift, life is happiness, every minute can be an eternity of happiness.

The soul is healed by being with children.

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 must add... my gratitude to you for the attention with which you have listened to me, for, from my numerous observations, our Liberals are never capable of letting anyone else have a conviction of his own without at once meeting their opponent with abuse or even something worse.

If everything on earth were rational, nothing would happen.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

I believe there is no one deeper, lovelier, more sympathetic and more perfect than Jesus.

I gave up caring about anything, and all the problems disappeared.

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

Above all, avoid lies, all lies, especially the lie to yourself. Keep watch on your own lie and examine it every hour, every minute. And avoid contempt, both of others and of yourself: what seems bad to you in yourself is purified by the very fact that you have noticed it in yourself. And avoid fear, though fear is simply the consequence of every lie. Never be frightened at your own faintheartedness in attaining love, and meanwhile do not even be very frightened by your own bad acts.

You can be sincere and still be stupid.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

Compassion is the chief law of human existence.

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

I tell you, the old-fashioned doctor who treated all diseases has completely disappeared, now there are only specialists, and they advertise all the time in the newspapers. If your nose hurts, they send you to Paris: there's a European specialist there, he treats noses. You go to Paris, he examines your nose: I can treat only your right nostril, he says, I don't treat left nostrils, it's not my specialty, but after me, go to Vienna, there's a separate specialist there who will finish treating your left nostril.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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!

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

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?

Only one thing matters, one thing; to be able to dare!

A just cause is not ruined by a few mistakes.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Only the heart knows how to find what is precious.

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.

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."

The world will be saved by beauty.

The man who is happy is fulfilling the purpose of existence

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

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.

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

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.

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

Hell is the inability to love.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

He who masters the grey everyday is a hero.

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.

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

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

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

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