Quotes by 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
Beauty is mysterious as well as terrible. God and devil are fighting there, and the battlefield is the heart of man.
– Fyodor Dostoevsky
Deprived of meaningful work, men and women lose their reason for existence; they go stark, raving mad.
– Fyodor Dostoevsky
Happiness does not lie in happiness, but in the achievement of it.
– Fyodor Dostoevsky
If there is no God, everything is permitted.
– Fyodor Dostoevsky
Innovators and men of genius have almost always been regarded as fools at the beginning (and very often at the end) of their careers.
– Fyodor Dostoevsky
It is not possible to eat me without insisting that I sing praises of my devourer?
– Fyodor Dostoevsky
It seems, in fact, as though the second half of a man's life is made up of nothing, but the habits he has accumulated during the first half.
– Fyodor Dostoevsky
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.
– Fyodor Dostoevsky
Much unhappiness has come into the world because of bewilderment and things left unsaid.
– Fyodor Dostoevsky
One can know a man from his laugh, and if you like a man's laugh before you know anything of him, you may confidently say that he is a good man.
– Fyodor Dostoevsky
Realists do not fear the results of their study.
– Fyodor Dostoevsky
Sarcasm: the last refuge of modest and chaste-souled people when the privacy of their soul is coarsely and intrusively invaded.
– Fyodor Dostoevsky
The formula 'Two and two make five' is not without its attractions.
– Fyodor Dostoevsky
The greatest happiness is to know the source of unhappiness.
– Fyodor Dostoevsky
The soul is healed by being with children.
– Fyodor Dostoevsky
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.
– Fyodor Dostoevsky
There is no subject so old that something new cannot be said about it.
– Fyodor Dostoevsky
To live without Hope is to Cease to live.
– 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 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 Dostoevsky
Neither man or nation can exist without a sublime idea.
– Fyodor Dostoevsky
The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons.
– Fyodor Dostoevsky
The second half of a man's life is made up of nothing but the habits he has acquired during the first half.
– Fyodor Dostoevsky
Man is tormented by no greater anxiety than to find someone quickly to whom he can hand over that great gift of freedom with which the ill-fated creature is born.
– Fyodor Dostoevsky
It's in the homes of spiteful old widows that one finds such cleanliness.
– Fyodor Dostoevsky
Love a man, even in his sin, for that love is a likeness of the divine love, and is the summit of love on earth.
– Fyodor Dostoevsky
If there is no immortality, there is no virtue.
– Fyodor Dostoevsky
There are three forces, the only three forces capable of conquering and enslaving forever the conscience of these weak rebels in the interests of their own happiness. They are: the miracle, the mystery and authority..
– Fyodor Dostoevsky
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, 'Make us your slaves, but feed us.
– Fyodor Dostoevsky
If it were desired to reduce man to nothing, it would be necessary only to give his work a character of uselessness.
– Fyodor Dostoevsky
Man has such a predilection for systems and abstract deductions that he is ready to distort the truth intentionally, he is ready to deny the evidence of his senses only to justify his logic.
– Fyodor Dostoevsky
So long as man remains free he strives for nothing so incessantly and painfully as to find someone to worship.
– Fyodor Dostoevsky
Lying to ourselves is more deeply ingrained than lying to others.
– Fyodor Dostoevsky
If the devil does not exist, and man has therefore created him, he has created him in his own image and likeness.
– Fyodor Dostoevsky
A just cause is not ruined by a few mistakes.
– Fyodor Dostoevsky
Love the animals: God has given them the rudiments of thought and joy untroubled.
– Fyodor Dostoevsky
What is hell? I maintain that it is the suffering of being unable to love.
– Fyodor Dostoevsky
Without a firm idea of himself and the purpose of his life, man cannot live, and would sooner destroy himself than remain on earth, even if he was surrounded by bread.
– Fyodor Dostoevsky
The most pressing question on the problem of faith is whether a man as a civilized being can believe in the divinity of the Son of God, Jesus Christ, for therein rests the whole of our faith.
– Fyodor Dostoevsky
To love someone means to see him as God intended him.
– Fyodor Dostoevsky
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!
– Fyodor Dostoevsky
Men do not accept their prophets and slay them, but they love their martyrs and worship those whom they have tortured to death.
– Fyodor Dostoevsky
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.
– Fyodor Dostoevsky