133 quotes
And now once again I asked myself the question: do I love her? And once more I could not answer, that is to say, again, for the hundredth time, I answered that I hated her.
The Gambler (1866)
They looked forward to that moment with joy, but without haste, not pining for it, but seeming to have a foretaste of it in their hearts, of which they talked to one another.
The Dream of a Ridiculous Man (1877)
So long as man remains free he strives for nothing so incessantly and so painfully as to find some one to worship.
The Brothers Karamazov (1879)
Paper, they say, does not blush, but I assure you it's not true and that it's blushing just as I am now, all over.
The Brothers Karamazov (1879)
Then such grief took possession of my soul that my heart was wrung, and I felt as though I were dying; and then ... then I awoke.
The Dream of a Ridiculous Man (1877)
You can be sincere and still be stupid.
Above all, do not lie to yourself. A man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point where he does not discern any truth either in himself or anywhere around him, and thus falls into disrespect towards himself and others.
The awful thing is that beauty is mysterious as well as terrible. God and the devil are fighting there and the battlefield is the heart of man. But a man always talks of his own ache.
The Brothers Karamazov (1879)
Brothers, love is a teacher; but one must know how to acquire it, for it is hard to acquire, it is dearly bought, it is won slowly by long labour. For we must love not only occasionally, for a moment, but for ever. Everyone can love occasionally, even the wicked can.
The Brothers Karamazov (1879)
I have never in my life met a man like him for noble simplicity, and boundless truthfulness. I understood from the way he talked that anyone who chose could deceive him, and that he would forgive anyone afterwards who had deceived him, and that was why I grew to love him.
The Idiot (1868)
Everything was given over by Thee to the Pope, and everything now rests with him alone; Thou hast no business to return and thus hinder us in our work.
I go to spread the tidings, I want to spread the tidings — of what? Of the truth, for I have seen it, have seen it with my own eyes, have seen it in all its glory.
The Dream of a Ridiculous Man (1877)
I have seen the truth; I have seen and I know that people can be beautiful and happy without losing the power of living on earth. I will not and cannot believe that evil is the normal condition of mankind. And it is just this faith of mine that they laugh at.
The Dream of a Ridiculous Man (1877)
But their knowledge was higher and deeper than ours; for our science seeks to explain what life is, aspires to understand it in order to teach others how to love, while they without science knew how to live; and that I understood, but I could not understand their knowledge.
The Dream of a Ridiculous Man (1877)
Faith is not in power but in truth.
The Brothers Karamazov (1879)
Do a man dirt, yourself you hurt.
Crime and Punishment (1866)
... people only count their misfortunes; their good luck they take no account of. But if they were to take everything into account, as they should, they'd find that they had their fair share of it.
Notes from Underground (1864)
Let it be a dream, so be it, but that real life of which you make so much I had meant to extinguish by suicide, and my dream, my dream — oh, it revealed to me a different life, renewed, grand and full of power!
The Dream of a Ridiculous Man (1877)
All is in a man's hands and he lets it all slip from cowardice, that's an axiom. It would be interesting to know what it is men are most afraid of. Taking a new step, uttering a new word is what they fear most.
Crime and Punishment (1866)
‘No one but you and one ‘jade’ I have fallen in love with, to my ruin. But being in love doesn't mean loving. You may be in love with a woman and yet hate her.
The Brothers Karamazov (1879)