"I feel pity for him, and that is a poor sign of love."
Read quote
3 likes
Quote collection
Fyodor Dostoevsky quotes (page 32 of 35)
684 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"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."
Read quote
3 likes
"Or renounce life altogether! Accept fate obediently as it is, once and for all, and stifle everything in myself, renouncing any right to act, to live, to love."
Read quote
3 likes
"The pleasure of despair. But then, it is in despair that we find the most acute pleasure, especially when we are aware of the hopelessness of the situation... ...everything is a mess in which it is impossible to tell what's what, but that despite this impossibility and deception it still hurts you, and the less you can understand, the more it hurts."
Read quote
3 likes
"..., twice two is four is not life, gentlemen, but the beginning of death."
Read quote
3 likes
"And do you know, do you know that mankind can live without the Englishman, it can live without Germany, it can live only too well without the Russian man, it can live without science, without bread, and it only cannot live without beauty, for then there would be nothing at all to do in the world! The whole secret is here, the whole of history is here. Science itself would not stand for a minute without beauty"
Read quote
3 likes
"Thus, as a result of heightened consciousness, a man feels as if it's all right if he's bad as long as he knows it- as though that were any consolation."
Read quote
3 likes
"This pleasure comes precisely from the sharpest awareness of your own degradation; from the knowledge that you have gone to the utmost limit; that it is despicable, yet cannot be otherwise; that you no longer have any way out; that you will never become a different man."
Read quote
3 likes
"Here is a commandment for you: seek happiness in sorrow. Work, work tirelessly."
Read quote
3 likes
"Let us first fulfill Christ's injunction ourselves and only then venture to expect it of our children. Otherwise we are not fathers, but enemies of our children, and they are not our children, but our enemies, and we have made them our enemies ourselves."
Read quote
3 likes
"If he's honest, he'll steal; if he's human, he'll murder; if he's faithful, he'll deceive."
Read quote
3 likes
"It suddenly seemed to me that I was lonely, that everyone was forsaking me and going away from me."
Read quote
3 likes
"He who desires to see the living God face-to-face should not seek him in the empty, firmament of his mind, but in human love."
Read quote
3 likes
"But gamblers know how a man can sit for almost twenty-four hours at cards, without looking to right, or to left."
Read quote
3 likes
"We are citizens of eternity."
Read quote
3 likes
"If he's alive, everything is in his power! Whose fault is it that he doesn't understand that?"
Read quote
3 likes
"I think everyone must love life more than anything else in the world.' 'Love life more than the meaning of it?' 'Yes, certainly. Love it regardless of logic, as you say. Yes, most certainly regardless of logic, for only then will I grasp its meaning. That's what I've been vaguely aware of for a long time. Half your work is done, Ivan: you love life. Now you must try to do the second half and you are saved."
Read quote
3 likes
"Because everyone is guilty for everyone else. For all the 'wee ones,' because there are little children and big children. All people are 'wee ones.' And I'll go for all of them, because there must be someone who will go for all of them."
Read quote
3 likes
"The more conscious I was of goodness and of all that was 'sublime and beautiful,'the more deeply I sank into my mire and the more ready I was to sink in it altogether."
Read quote
3 likes
"Remember that you must never sell your soul. Never accept payment in advance.... Never give a work to the printer before it is finished. This is the worst thing you can do.... It constitutes the murder of your own ideas."
Read quote
3 likes