"I walked along Nevsky Avenue.Actually it was more torture, humiliation, and bilious irritation than a stroll."
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Quote collection
Fyodor Dostoevsky quotes (page 31 of 35)
684 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"The Golden Age is the most implausible of all dreams. But for it men have given up their life and strength; for the sake of it prophets have died and been slain; without it the people will not live and cannot die."
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"I agree that two and two make four is an excellent thing; but to give everything its due, two and two make five is also a very fine thing."
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"I will not and cannot believe that evil is the normal condition of mankind."
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"And yet I am convinced that man will never give up true suffering- that is, destruction and chaos. Why, suffering is the sole root of consciousness."
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"For men are made for happiness, and any one who is completely happy has a right to say to himself, 'I am doing God's will on earth.'"
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"...a condemned man who, at the hour of death, says or thinks that if the alternative were offered him of existing somewhere, on a height of rock or some narrow elevation, where only his two feet could stand, and round about him the ocean, perpetual gloom, perpetual solitude, perpetual storm, to remain there standing on a yard of surface for a lifetime, a thousand years, eternity! - rather would he live thus than die at once? Only live, live, live! - no matter how, only live!"
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"Gentlemen, I am tormented by questions; answer them for me."
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"Accept suffering and achieve atonement through it — that is what you must do."
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"Occasionally I was so much better that I could go out; but the streets used to put me in such a rage that I would lock myself up for days rather than go out, even if I were well enough to do so! I could not bear to see all those preoccupied, anxious-looking creatures continuously surging along the streets past me! Why are they always anxious? What is the meaning of their eternal care and worry? It is their wickedness, their perpetual detestable malice-that's what it is-they are all full of malice, malice!"
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"But yet I am firmly persuaded that a great deal of consciousness, every sort of consciousness, in fact, is a disease."
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"He does not like showing his feelings and would rather do a cruel thing than open his heart freely."
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"But try getting blindly carried away by your feelings, without reasoning, without a primary cause, driving consciousness away at least for a time; start hating, or fall in love, only so as not to sit with folded arms."
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"I know you'll probably get angry with me for that, shout, stamp your feet: "speak just for yourself and your miseries in the underground, and don't go saying 'we all.'" Excuse me, gentleman, but I am not justifying myself with this allishness. As far as I myself am concerned, I have merely carried to an extreme in my life what you have not dared to carry even halfway, and, what's more, you've taken your cowardice for good sense, and found comfort in thus deceiving yourselves. So that I, perhaps, come out even more "living" than you."
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"One could never judge a man without seeing him close, for oneself."
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"Suppose, gentleman, that man is not stupid."
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"But people will laugh at all sorts of things."
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"Pass us by, and forgive us our happiness"
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"Life had stepped into the place of theory."
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"Can a man of perception respect himself at all?"
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