Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Novelist

1821-11-11 – 1881-01-01

Fyodor Dostoyevsky was a Russian novelist and short-story writer whose works explored psychology, morality, and faith. He is best known for Crime and Punishment, The Idiot, and The Brothers Karamazov. His writing had a major influence on modern literature and philosophy.

Quotes by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Strength, strength is what I need; nothing can be done without strength; and strength must be gained by strength.
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You see, gentlemen, reason is an excellent thing, there's no disputing that, but reason is nothing but reason and satisfies only the rational side of man's nature, while will is a manifestation of the whole life, that is, of the whole human life including reason and all the impulses. And although our life, in this manifestation of it, is often worthless, yet it is life and not simply extracting square roots. Here I, for instance, quite naturally want to live, in order to satisfy all my capacities for life, and not simply my capacity for reasoning, that is, not simply one twentieth of my capacity for life. What does reason know? Reason only knows what it has succeeded in learning (some things, perhaps, it will never learn; this is a poor comfort, but why not say so frankly?) and human nature acts as a whole, with everything that is in it, consciously or unconsciously, and, even if it goes wrong, it lives.
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Though these young men unhappily fail tounderstand that the sacrifice of life is, in many cases, the easiest ofall sacrifices, and that to sacrifice, for instance, five or six years oftheir seething youth to hard and tedious study, if only to multiplytenfold their powers of serving the truth and the cause they have setbefore them as their goal--such a sacrifice is utterly beyond the strengthof many of them.
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Never for one minute have I taken you for reality . . . You are a lie, you are my illness, you are a phantom . . . You are my hallucination. You are the incarnation of myself . . . of my thoughts and feelings, but only the nastiest and stupidest of them.
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A man who lies to himself, and believes his own lies, becomes unable to recognize truth, either in himself or in anyone else, and he ends up losing respect for himself and for others. When he has no respect for anyone, he can no longer love, and in him, he yields to his impulses, indulges in the lowest form of pleasure, and behaves in the end like an animal in satisfying his vices. And it all comes from lying — to others and to yourself.
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Try and set yourself the task not to think of a white bear, and the cursed thing comes to mind every minute.
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Man is a vile creature!
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Don't be surprised that I value prejudice, observe certain conventions, seek power--it's because I know I live in an empty society.
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And yet how simple it is: in one day, in one hour everything could be arranged at once! The chief thing is to love others like yourself, that's the chief thing, and that's everything; nothing else is wanted — you will find out at once how to arrange it all.
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But profound as psychology is, it's a knife that cuts both ways (...). I have purposely resorted to this method, gentlemen of the jury, to show that you can prove anything by it. It all depends on who makes use of it. Psychology lures even most serious people into romancing, and quite unconsciously. I am speaking of the abuse of psychology, gentlemen.
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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.
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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 and irretrievable destruction.
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But man is a fickle and disreputable creature and perhaps, like a chess-player, is interested in the process of attaining his goal rather than the goal itself.
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Why, the whole world of knowledge is not worth that child's prayer to 'dear, kind God'! I say nothing of the sufferings of grown-up people, they have eaten the apple, damn them, and the devil take them all! But these little ones!The Brothers KaramazovIvan to Alyosha, on the suffering and torture of children, Book V - Pro and Contra, Chapter 4 - Rebellion.
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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.
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Grown-up people do not know that a child can give exceedingly good advice even in the most difficult case.
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Woe to the man who offends a small child!
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Children can be told anything— anything. I've always been struck by seeing how little grown-up people understand children, how little parents even understand their own children. Nothing should be concealed from children on the pretext that they are little and that it is too early for them to understand. What a miserable and unfortunate idea! And how readily the children detect that their fathers consider them too little to understand anything, though they understand everything. Grown-up people do not know that a child can give exceedingly good advice even in the most difficult case.
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Man is fond of reckoning up his troubles, but does not count his joys.
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Ah youth, youth! That's what happens when you go steeping your soul into Shakespeare
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