Great Quotes from Fyodor Dostoevsky
FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY (Russian novelist, 1821 – 1881)
Fyodor Dostoevsky was a Russian novelist, short story writer, essayist, and journalist. Dostoevsky’s literary works explore human psychology in the troubled political, social, and spiritual atmospheres of 19th-century Russia, and engage with a variety of philosophical and religious themes.
“To love is to suffer and there can be no love otherwise”
“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.”
“It is better to be unhappy and know the worst, than to be happy in a fool’s paradise.”
“The darker the night, the brighter the stars, the deeper the grief, the closer is God!”
“Beauty will save the world.”
“I say let the world go to hell, but I should always have my tea.”
“Man only likes to count his troubles, he doesn’t calculate his happiness.”
“The soul is healed by being with children.”
“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.”
“What is hell? I maintain that it is the suffering of being unable to love.”
“It takes something more than intelligence to act intelligently.”
“The mystery of human existence lies not just staying alive, but in finding something to live for.”
“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.”
“Taking a new step, uttering a new word, is what people fear most.”
“Much unhappiness has come into the world because of bewilderment and things left unsaid.”
“Nothing in this world is harder than speaking the truth, nothing easier than flattery.”
“To love someone means to see them as God intended them.”
“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.”
“It is not the brains that matter most, but that which guides them: the character, the heart, generous qualities, progressive ideas.”
“You can be sincere and still be stupid.”
“Don’t let us forget that the causes of human actions are usually immeasurably more complex and varied than our subsequent explanations of them.”
“I think the devil doesn’t exist, but man has created him, he has created him in his own image and likeness.”
“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.”
“This is my last message to you: in sorrow, seek happiness.”
“Besides, nowadays, almost all capable people are terribly afraid of being ridiculous, and are miserable because of it.”
“Nothing is easier than to denounce the evildoer, nothing is more difficult than to understand him.”
“Sarcasm – the last refuge of modest and chaste – souled people when the privacy of their soul is coarsely and intrusively invaded.”
“Love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing compared to love and dreams.”
“The cleverest of all, in my opinion, is the man who calls himself a fool at least once a month.”
“If you want to overcome the whole world, overcome yourself.”
“I am alone, I thought, and they are everybody.”
“The man who has a conscience suffers whilst acknowledging his sin. That is his punishment.”
“Grown-up people do not know that a child can give exceedingly good advice even in the most difficult case.”
“Power is given only to him who dares to stoop and take it… One must have the courage to dare.”
“I am a fool with a heart but no brains, and you are a fool with brains but no heart and we’re both unhappy, and we both suffer.”
“Man has it all in his hands and it all slips through his fingers from sheer cowardice.”
“Love of man, even in his sin, for that love is a likeness of the divine love, and is the summit of love on earth.”
“A man who lies to himself, becomes unable to recognize truth either in himself or in anyone else and he ends up losing respect for himself and for others.”
“It’s life that matters, nothing but life – the process of discovering, the everlasting and perpetual process, not the discovery itself, at all.”
“Nothing has ever been more insupportable for a man and a human society than freedom.”
“Love children especially for they too are sinless like the angels; they live to soften and purify our hearts and as it were, to guide us.”
