"One must be a great man indeed to be able to hold out even against common sense." "Or else a fool."
Read quote
3 likes
Quote collection
Fyodor Dostoevsky quotes (page 34 of 35)
684 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"I punish myself for my whole life, my whole life I punish."
Read quote
3 likes
"Your hand is cold, mine burns like fire. How blind you are, Nastenka!"
Read quote
3 likes
"But do you understand, I cry to him, do you understand that if you have the guillotine in the forefront, and with such glee, it's for the sole reason that cutting heads off is the easiest thing, and having an idea is difficult!"
Read quote
3 likes
"I never have frustrations. The reason is to wit: Of at first I don't succeed, I quit!"
Read quote
3 likes
"Hold your tongue; you won't understand anything. If there is no God, then I am God."
Read quote
3 likes
"Of course I shall go astray often...for who does not make mistakes? But I cannot go far wrong for I have seen the truth."
Read quote
3 likes
"Of course boredom may lead you to anything. It is boredom sets one sticking golden pins into people, but all that would not matter. What is bad (this is my comment again) is that I dare say people will be thankful for the gold pins then."
Read quote
3 likes
"If thou love each thing thou wilt perceive the mystery of God in all."
Read quote
3 likes
"No, I can't admit it. Brother,' said Alyosha suddenly, with flashing eyes, 'you said just now, is there a being in the whole world who would have the right to forgive and could firgive? But there is a Being and He can forgive everything, all and for all, because He gave His innocent blood for all and everything. You have forgotten Him, and on Him is built the edifice, and it is to Him they cry aloud, "Thou art just, O Lord, for Thy ways are revealed!"
Read quote
3 likes
"A special form of misery had begun to oppress him of late. There was nothing poignant, nothing acute about it; but there was a feeling of permanence, of eternity about it; it brought a foretaste of hopeless years of this cold leaden misery, a foretaste of an eternity "on a square yard of space."
Read quote
3 likes
"... you simply can't imagine what men will say!"
Read quote
3 likes
"you don't need free will to determine that twice two is four. that's not what i call free will"
Read quote
3 likes
"My friends, ask gladness from God. Be glad as children, as birds in the sky. And let man's sin not disturb you in your efforts, do not feat that it will dampen your endeavor and keep it from being fulfilled, do not say, Sin is strong, impiety is strong, the bad environment is strong, and we are lonely and powerless, the bad environment will dampen us and keep our good endeavor from being fulfilled. Flee from such despondency, my children! There is only one salvation for you: take yourself up, and make yourself responsible for the sins of men."
Read quote
3 likes
"It is necessary that every man have at least somewhere to go. For there are times when one absolutely must go at least somewhere!"
Read quote
3 likes
"Do you understand, sir, do you understand what it means when you have absolutely nowhere to turn?" Marmeladov's question came suddenly into his mind "for every man must have somewhere to turn."
Read quote
3 likes
"Oh, gentlemen, 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. Granted, granted I'm a babbler, a harmless, irksome babbler, as we all are. But what's to be done if the sole and express purpose of every intelligent man is babble--that is, a deliberate pouring from empty into void."
Read quote
3 likes
"I am a sick man...I am a wicked man. An unattractive man. I think my liver hurts. However, i don't know a fig about my sickness, and am not sure what it is that hurts me. I am not being treated and never have been, though I respect medicine. What's more, I am also superstitious in the extreme; well, at least enough to respect medicine."
Read quote
3 likes
"For example, I'm terribly proud. I'm as mistrustful and as sensitive as a hunchback or a dwarf; but, in truth, I've experienced some moments when if someone had slapped my face, I might even have been grateful for it. I'm being serious. I probably would have been able to derive a peculiar sort of pleasure from it-the pleasure of despair, naturally, but the most intense pleasures occur in despair, especially when you're very acutely aware of the hopelessness of your own predicament."
Read quote
3 likes
"Whatever distinguishes one lump of flesh from another when we're alive, we're all the same once we're dead. Just used-up shells."
Read quote
3 likes