Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky, sometimes transliterated Dostoyevsky, was a Russian novelist, short story writer, essayist, journalist and philosopher. Profoundly inspirational Fyodor Dostoevsky quotes will challenge the way you think, and help guide you through any life experience.
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Famous Fyodor Dostoevsky Quotes
The mystery of human existence lies not in just staying alive, but in finding something to live for. Fyodor Dostoevsky
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. Fyodor Dostoevsky
The best way to keep a prisoner from escaping is to make sure he never knows he’s in prison. Fyodor Dostoevsky
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. Fyodor Dostoevsky
A man who lies to himself, and believes his own lies become 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. Fyodor Dostoevsky
To go wrong in one’s own way is better than to go right in someone else’s. Fyodor Dostoevsky
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. Fyodor Dostoevsky
I say let the world go to hell, but I should always have my tea. Fyodor Dostoevsky
Nothing in this world is harder than speaking the truth, nothing easier than flattery. Fyodor Dostoevsky
Man only likes to count his troubles; he doesn’t calculate his happiness. Fyodor Dostoevsky
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. Fyodor Dostoevsky
The soul is healed by being with children. Fyodor Dostoevsky
The darker the night, the brighter the stars, The deeper the grief, the closer is God! Fyodor Dostoevsky
I love mankind, he said, but I find to my amazement that the more I love mankind as a whole, the less I love man in particular. Fyodor Dostoyevsky
I gave up caring about anything, and all the problems disappeared. Fyodor Dostoevsky
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. Fyodor Dostoyevsky
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. Fyodor Dostoevsky
It takes something more than intelligence to act intelligently. Fyodor Dostoyevsky
It is better to be unhappy and know the worst than to be happy in a fool’s paradise. Fyodor Dostoevsky
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. Fyodor Dostoyevsky
If you want to overcome the whole world, overcome yourself. Fyodor Dostoevsky
The mystery of human existence lies not in just staying alive, but in finding something to live for. Fyodor Dostoyevsky
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. Fyodor Dostoevsky
Talking nonsense is the sole privilege mankind possesses over the other organisms. It’s by talking nonsense that one gets to the truth! I talk nonsense, therefore I’m human. Fyodor Dostoevsky
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. Fyodor Dostoevsky
Taking a new step, uttering a new word, is what people fear most. Fyodor Dostoevsky
You can be sincere and still be stupid. Fyodor Dostoevsky
Much unhappiness has come into the world because of bewilderment and things left unsaid. Fyodor Dostoevsky
The soul is healed by being with children. Fyodor Dostoevsky
Nothing in this world is harder than speaking the truth, nothing easier than flattery. Fyodor Dostoevsky
The more I love humanity in general, the less I love man in particular. Fyodor Dostoevsky
Man is a mystery. It needs to be unravelled, and if you spend your whole life unravelling it, don’t say that you’ve wasted time. I am studying that mystery because I want to be a human being. Fyodor Dostoevsky
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. Fyodor Dostoevsky
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. Fyodor Dostoevsky
Nothing is easier than to denounce the evildoer; nothing is more difficult than to understand him. Fyodor Dostoevsky
The awful thing is that beauty is mysterious as well as terrible. God and the devil are fighting there and the battlefield is the heart of man. Fyodor Dostoevsky
Yes, that’s right love should come before logic Only then will man come to understand the meaning of life. Fyodor Dostoevsky
If you wish to glimpse inside a human soul and get to know a man, don’t bother analyzing his ways of being silent, of talking, of weeping, of seeing how much he is moved by noble ideas; you will get better results if you just watch him laugh. If he laughs well, he’s a good man. Fyodor Dostoevsky
For broad understanding and deep feeling, you need pain and suffering. Fyodor Dostoevsky
It is not the brains that matter most, but that which guides them the character, the heart, generous qualities, progressive ideas. Fyodor Dostoevsky
Suffering is part and parcel of extensive intelligence and a feeling heart. Fyodor Dostoevsky
Don’t let us forget that the causes of human actions are usually immeasurably more complex and varied than our subsequent explanations of them. Fyodor Dostoevsky
Wealth is the number of things one can do without. Fyodor Dostoevsky
Pain and suffering are always inevitable for a large intelligence and a deep heart. Fyodor Dostoyevsky
If everything on earth were rational, nothing would happen. Fyodor Dostoevsky
I think the devil doesn’t exist, but man has created him, he has created him in his own image and likeness. Fyodor Dostoevsky
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. Fyodor Dostoevsky
To love is to suffer and there can be no love otherwise. Fyodor Dostoevsky
The cleverest of all, in my opinion, is the man who calls himself a fool at least once a month. Fyodor Dostoevsky
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. Fyodor Dostoyevsky
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. Fyodor Dostoevsky
Besides, nowadays, almost all capable people are terribly afraid of being ridiculous, and are miserable because of it. Fyodor Dostoevsky
A hundred suspicions don’t make a proof. Fyodor Dostoevsky
I used to analyze myself down to the last thread, used to compare myself with others, recalled all the smallest glances, smiles and words of those to whom I’d tried to be frank, interpreted everything in a bad light, laughed viciously at my attempts to be like the rest and suddenly, in the midst of my laughing, I’d give way to sadness, fall into ludicrous despondency and once again start the whole process all over again in short, I went round and round like a squirrel on a wheel. Fyodor Dostoevsky
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. Fyodor Dostoevsky
Nothing is easier than to denounce the evildoer; nothing is more difficult than to understand him. Fyodor Dostoevsky
It takes something more than intelligence to act intelligently. Fyodor Dostoevsky
The more stupid one is, the closer one is to reality. The more stupid one is, the clearer one is. Stupidity is brief and artless, while intelligence squirms and hides itself. Intelligence is unprincipled, but stupidity is honest and straightforward. Fyodor Dostoyevsky
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. Fyodor Dostoevsky
My God, a moment of bliss. Why, isn’t that enough for a whole lifetime? Fyodor Dostoevsky
Only one thing matters, one thing; to be able to dare! Fyodor Dostoevsky
You will burn and you will burn out; you will be healed and come back again. Fyodor Dostoevsky
But how could you live and have no story to tell? Fyodor Dostoevsky
There is something at the bottom of every new human thought, every thought of genius, or even every earnest thought that springs up in any brain, which can never be communicated to others, even if one were to write volumes about it and were explaining one’s idea for thirty five years; there’s something left which cannot be induced to emerge from your brain, and remains with you forever; and with it you will die, without communicating to anyone perhaps the most important of your ideas. Fyodor Dostoevsky
Only through suffering can we find ourselves. Fyodor Dostoevsky
The cleverest of all, in my opinion, is the man who calls himself a fool at least once a month. Fyodor Dostoevsky
Only the heart knows how to find what is precious. Fyodor Dostoevsky
A hundred suspicions don’t make a proof. Fyodor Dostoyevsky
The more incompetent one feels, the more eager he is to fight. Fyodor Dostoevsky
We’re always thinking of eternity as an idea that cannot be understood, something immense. But why must it be? What if, instead of all this, you suddenly find just a little room there, something like a village bath house, grimy, and spiders in every corner, and that’s all eternity is. Sometimes, you know, I can’t help feeling that that’s what it is. Fyodor Dostoevsky
To love another person is to see them as God intended them to be. Fyodor Dostoevsky
Killing myself was a matter of such indifference to me that I felt like waiting for a moment when it would make some difference. Fyodor Dostoevsky
There is immeasurably more left inside than what comes out in words. Fyodor Dostoevsky
I believe like a child that suffering will be healed and made up for, that all the humiliating absurdity of human contradictions will vanish like a pitiful mirage, like the despicable fabrication of the impotent and infinitely small Euclidean mind of man, that in the world’s finale, at the moment of eternal harmony, something so precious will come to pass that it will suffice for all hearts, for the comforting of all resentments, for the atonement of all the crimes of humanity, for all the blood that they’ve shed; that it will make it not only possible to forgive but to justify all that has happened. Fyodor Dostoevsky
He who masters the grey every day is a hero. Fyodor Dostoevsky
The man who has a conscience suffers whilst acknowledging his sin. That is his punishment. Fyodor Dostoyevsky
To think too much is a disease. Fyodor Dostoevsky
A beast can never be as cruel as a human being, so artistically, so picturesquely cruel. Fyodor Dostoyevsky
What is hell? I maintain that it is the suffering of being unable to love. Fyodor Dostoevsky
I am a dreamer. I know so little of real life that I just can’t help re living such moments as these in my dreams, for such moments are something I have very rarely experienced. I am going to dream about you the whole night, the whole week, the whole year. Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Right attitudes produces right action. Fyodor Dostoevsky
I am alone, I thought, and they are everybody. Fyodor Dostoyevsky
The greatest happiness is to know the source of unhappiness. Fyodor Dostoevsky
Lack of originality, everywhere, all over the world, from time immemorial, has always been considered the foremost quality and the recommendation of the active, efficient and practical man. Fyodor Dostoevsky
Lying to ourselves is more deeply ingrained than lying to others. Fyodor Dostoevsky
And the more I drink the more I feel it. That’s why I drink too. I try to find sympathy and feeling in drink. I drink so that I may suffer twice as much! Fyodor Dostoevsky
I think the devil doesn’t exist, but man has created him, he has created him in his own image and likeness. Fyodor Dostoevsky
I could not become anything; neither good nor bad; neither a scoundrel nor an honest man; neither a hero nor an insect. And now I am eking out my days in my corner, taunting myself with the bitter and entirely useless consolation that an intelligent man cannot seriously become anything, that only a fool can become something. Fyodor Dostoevsky
