Quotes by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

About Fyodor Dostoyevsky:

Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky was a Russian novelist, short story writer, essayist, journalist and philosopher. Dostoyevsky's literary works explore human psychology in the troubled political, social, and spiritual atmosphere of 19th-century Russia. Many of his works are marked by a preoccupation with Christianity, explored through the prism of the individual confronted with life's hardships and beauty.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Do you know I don't know how one can walk by a tree and not be happy at the sight of it? How can one talk to a man and not be happy in loving him! Oh, it's only that I'm not able to express it...And what beautiful things there are at every step, that...

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

The Russian soul is a dark place.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Why is it that when you awake to the world of realities you nearly always feel, sometimes very vividly, that the vanished dream has carried with it some enigma which you have failed to solve?

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

If I had had the power to prevent my own birth I should certainly never have consented to accept existence under such ridiculous conditions.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

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.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

We degrade God too much, ascribing to him our ideas, in vexation at being unable to understand Him.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

I don't like being with grown-up people. I've known that a long time. I don't like it because I don't know how to get on with them.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

A fool with a heart and no sense is just as unhappy as a fool with sense and no heart.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

We've already had Malthus, the friend of humanity. But the friend of humanity with shaky moral principles is the devourer of humanity, to say nothing of his conceit; for, wound the vanity of any one of these numerous friends of humanity, and he's rea...

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Don’t let us forget that the causes of human actions are usually immeasurably more complex and varied than our subsequent explanations of them.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

- A necessidade de comer e beber é simplesmente o instinto de autoconservação! - Mas não acha que esse instinto de autopreservação por si só é importante? Ora, o instinto de autoconservação é a lei normal da humanidade! - Quem lhe disse is...

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Alexandra, my eldest, here, plays the piano, or reads or sews; Adelaida paints landscapes and portraits (but never finishes any); and Aglaya sits and does nothing. I don't work too much, either.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

There is something at the bottom of every new human thought, every thought of genius, or even every earnest thought that springs up in any brain, which can never be communicated to others, even if one were to write volumes about it and were explainin...

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Mas, não obstante, eu acrescento que em qualquer pensamento genial ou no novo pensamento humano, ou simplesmente até em qualquer pensamento humano sério, que medra da cabeça de alguém, sempre resta algo que de maneira nenhuma se pode transmitir ...

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Bah! You want to hear the vilest thing a man’s done and you want him to be a hero at the same time!

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Lunatics! Vain creatures! They don't believe in God, they don't believe in Christ! Why, you are so eaten up with pride and vanity that you'll end up by eating one another, that's what I prophesy.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

God has such gladness every time he sees from heaven that a sinner is praying to Him with all his heart, as a mother has when she sees the first smile on her baby's face.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Nothing helps a man to reform like thinking of the past with regret.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Don't be surprised that I value prejudice, observe certain conventions, seek power--it's because I know I live in an empty society.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

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 Dostoyevsky

If it could come about that each of us were to describe his innermost secrets –secrets which one would hesitate to tell not only to people at large, but even to one’s closest friends, nay, to fear to admit even to one’s own self - the world wou...

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Author Bio

  • NameFyodor Dostoyevsky
  • DescriptionRussian 19th century author
  • AliasesDostoyevsky
  • BornNovember 11, 1821
  • DiedFebruary 9, 1881
  • CountryRussian Empire
  • ProfessionTranslator; Philosopher; Poet; Novelist; Essayist; Short Story Writer; Journalist; Writer
  • WorksNotes From Underground; Crime And Punishment; The Idiot; Demons; The Brothers Karamazov; The House Of The Dead; The Gambler