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.
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how anxiously I yearned for those I had forsaken.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

I want to suffer so that I may love.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

I suddenly felt that it was all the same to me whether the world existed or whether there had never been anything at all: I began to feel with all my being that there was nothing existing. At first I fancied that many things had existed in the past, ...

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Killing myself was a matter of such indifference to me that I felt like waiting for a moment when it would make some difference.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

All of a sudden I became aware of a little star in one of those patches and I began looking at it intently. That was because the little star gave me an idea: I made up my mind to kill myself that night. I had made up my mind to kill myself already tw...

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

During these three months I have gone through much; I mean, I have gone through much in myself; and now there are the things I am going to see and go through. There will be much to be written.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Marriage is the moral death of every proud soul, of all independence.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

I believe he was feeling a bit nervous. Possibly it was my costume that took him aback. I was dressed quite well, even elegantly, and looked as if I belonged to the best society.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Sometimes it happens that the most insane thought, the most impossible conception, will become so fixed in one's head that at length one believes the thought or the conception to be reality. Moreover, if with the thought or the conception there is co...

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Or perhaps it is because it is so NECESSARY for you to win. It is like a drowning man catching at a straw. You yourself will agree that, unless he were drowning he would not mistake a straw for the trunk of a tree.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Oh, I have always been proud, I always wanted all or nothing! You see it was just because I am not one who will accept half a happiness, but always wanted all

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

I worked it through with pride,I almost spoke without words, and i'm masterly at speaking without words.All my life I have spoken without words, and I have passed through whole tragedies on my own account without words

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Generally speaking, our prisoners were capable of loving animals, and if they had been allowed they would have delighted to rear large numbers of domestic animals and birds in the prison. And I wonder what other activity could better have softened an...

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

...everything defiled and degraded. What cannot man live through! Man is a creature that can get accustomed to anything, and I think that is the best definition of him.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

No man lives, can live, without having some object in view, and making efforts to attain that object. But when object there is none, and hope is entirely fled, anguish often turns a man into a monster.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

In short, the right given to one man to inflict corporal punishment on another is one of the ulcers of society, one of the most powerful destructive agents of every germ and every budding attempt at civilization, the fundamental cause of its certain ...

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Whoever has experienced the power and the unrestrained ability to humiliate another human being automatically loses his own sensations. Tyranny is a habit, it has its own organic life, it develops finally into a disease. The habit can kill and coarse...

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Often a man endures for several years, submits and suffers the cruellest punishments, and then suddenly breaks out over some minute trifle, almost nothing at all.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Reality is infinitely diverse, compared with even the subtlest conclusions of abstract thought, and does not allow of clear-cut and sweeping distinctions. Reality resists classification.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Ah, Misha, he has a stormy spirit. His mind is in bondage. He is haunted by a great, unsolved doubt. He is one of those who don't want millions, but an answer to their questions.

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