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

I want peace; yes, I'd sell the whole world for a farthing, straight off, so long as I was left in peace. Is the world to go to pot, or am I to go without my tea? I say that the world may go to pot for me so long as I always get my tea. Did you know ...

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

However, do you know what? I am convinced that fellows like me who live in dark cellars must be kept under restraint. They may be able to live in their dark cellars for forty years and never open their mouths, but the moment they get into the light o...

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

It is a law of nature that every decent man on earth is bound to be a coward and a slave

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

I am a sick man... I am a spiteful man. I am an unpleasant man. I think my liver is diseased. However, I don't know beans about my disease, and I am not sure what is bothering me. I don't treat it and never have, though I respect medicine and doctors...

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

...there is no explaining anything by reasoning and so it is useless to reason.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

For a woman, all resurrection, all salvation, from whatever perdition, lies in love; in fact, it is her only way to it.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Yet, I didn't understand that she was intentionally disguising her feelings with sarcasm; that was usually the last resort of people who are timid and chaste of heart, whose souls have been coarsely and impudently invaded; and who, until the last mom...

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

There are certain things in a man's past which he does not divulge to everybody but, perhaps, only to his friends. Again there are certain things he will not divulge even to his friends; he will divulge them perhaps only to himself, and that, too, as...

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

I will put up with any mockery rather than pretend that I am satisfied when I am hungry.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

And, indeed, I will ask on my own account here, an idle question: which is better - cheap happiness or exalted sufferings? Well, which is better?

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

I swear to you that to think too much is a disease, a real, actual disease.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

A cultivated and decent man cannot be vain without setting a fearfully high standard for himself, and without despising and almost hating himself at certain moments.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Oh literature is a wonderful thing, Varenka, a very wonderful thing: I discovered that from being with those people the day before yesterday. It is a profound thing. It strengthens people’s hearts and instructs them,… Literature is a picture, or ...

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

My sweetheart! When I think of you, it's as if I'm holding some healing balm to my sick soul, and although i suffer for you, i find that even suffering for you is easy.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

They say, the sun brings life to the world. The sun will rise and look is it not a corpse? Everything is dead and there are corpses everywhere. Just people and around them silence__that is the world! "Love one another"__who said that? Whose command i...

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Can you blame me, my dear, for looking on this attachment as a romantic folly inspired by that cursed Shakespeare who will poke his nose where he is not wanted?

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Sou um sonhador, mal conheço a vida real, e um momento como este é tão raro de ser conseguido por mim, que me seria absolutamente impossível não continuar a evocá-lo sempre em meus sonhos.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

. . . finally, I couldn't imagine how I could live without books, and I stopped dreaming about marrying that Chinese prince. . . .

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Kalbim içimde konuşurken ben susmayı beceremem.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

I am told that the proximity of punishment arouses real repentance in the criminal and sometimes awakens a feeling of genuine remorse in the most hardened heart; I am told this is due to fear.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

I am a dreamer. I know so little of real life that I just can’t help re-living such moments as these in my dreams, for such moments are something I have very rarely experienced. I am going to dream about you the whole night, the whole week, the who...

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