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Fyodor Dostoyevsky Quotes
1821–1881 Russia
Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky or Dostoevsky [Фёдор Миха́йлович Достое́вский] (11 November 1821 - 9 February 1881) was a Russian novelist, short story writer, essayist, and journalist. Dostoevsky's literary works explore the human condition in the troubled political, social, and spiritual atmospheres of 19th-century Russia, and engage with a variety of philosophical and religious themes.
Russia Essayists Exiles Journalists Novelists Also known as: Dostoevsky, Fyodor, Dostoyevsky, Fyodor Dosdoyefsky, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Dostoevsky, Feodor Dostoevsky
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133 quotes
If not reason, then the devil.
Crime and Punishment (1866)
It wasn't the New World that mattered ... Columbus died almost without seeing it; and not really knowing what he had discovered. It's life that matters, nothing but life — the process of discovering, the everlasting and perpetual process, not the discovery itself, at all.
The Idiot (1868)
They pointed to the stars and told me something about them which I could not understand, but I am convinced that they were somehow in touch with the stars, not only in thought, but by some living channel.
The Dream of a Ridiculous Man (1877)
Once it's been proved to you that you're descended from an ape, it's no use pulling a face; just accept it. Once they've proved to you that a single droplet of your own fat must be dearer to you than a hundred thousand of your fellow human beings and consequently that all so-called virtues and duties are nothing but ravings and prejudices, then accept that too, because there's nothing to be done.
Notes from Underground (1864)
Dreams, as we all know, are very queer things: some parts are presented with appalling vividness, with details worked up with the elaborate finish of jewellery, while others one gallops through, as it were, without noticing them at all, as, for instance, through space and time. Dreams seem to be spurred on not by reason but by desire, not by the head but by the heart, and yet what complicated tricks my reason has played sometimes in dreams, what utterly incomprehensible things happen to it!
The Dream of a Ridiculous Man (1877)
Well, granted that it was only a dream, yet the sensation of the love of those innocent and beautiful people has remained with me for ever, and I feel as though their love is still flowing out to me from over there.
The Dream of a Ridiculous Man (1877)
It is easier for a Russian to become an Atheist, than for any other nationality in the world. And not only does a Russian 'become an Atheist,' but he actually BELIEVES IN Atheism, just as though he had found a new faith, not perceiving that he has pinned his faith in a negation. Such is our anguish of thirst!
The Idiot (1869)
I have seen the truth... It is not as though I had invented it with my mind. I have seen it, seen it, and the living image of it has filled my soul forever.... In one day, one hour, everything could be arranged at once! The chief thing is to love.
Marilyn Ferguson in The Aquarian Conspiracy (1980)
Even those who have renounced Christianity and attack it, in their inmost being still follow the Christian ideal, for hitherto neither their subtlety nor the ardor of their hearts has been able to create a higher ideal of man and of virtue than the ideal given by Christ.
The Brothers Karamazov (1879)
The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons.
Misattributed
The darker the night, the brighter the stars, the deeper the grief, the closer is God!
Misattributed
Tolerance will reach such a level that intelligent people will be banned from thinking so as not to offend the imbeciles.
Misattributed
Trust no one in whom the desire to punish is strong
Misattributed
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