Fyodor Dostoyevsky Quotes

I maintain that he is in his right mind, and that if he had not been, he would have behaved more cleverly.

I see the sun, and if I don’t see the sun, I know it’s there. And there’s a whole life in that, in knowing that the sun is there.

I seem to be ready for work, my materials are collected, yet the work doesn't get done! Nothing is done!

I suffered all evening, all night, I'm partly suffering now as well.

I swear to you, sirs, that excessive consciousness is a disease--a genuine, absolute disease.

I swear, gentlemen, that to be too conscious is an illness--a real thorough-going illness. For

I think that if the devil does not exist, but man has created him, he has created him in his own image and likeness.

I used to imagine adventures for myself, I invented a life, so that I could at least exist somehow.

I want to attempt a thing like that and am frightened by these trifles, he thought, with an odd smile. Hm … yes, all is in a man's hands and he lets it all slip from cowardice, that's an axiom. It wou...

I wanted to fathom her secrets; I wanted her to come to me and say: I love you, and if not that, if that was senseless insanity, then...well, what was there to care about? Did I know what I wanted? I...

I was also afraid to the point of illness of being ridiculous, and therefore slavishly worshipped routine in everything to do with externals; I loved falling into the common rut, and feared any eccent...

I was, of course, myself the chief sufferer, because I was fully conscious of the disgusting meanness of my spiteful stupidity, and yet at the same time I could not restrain myself.

I will tell you another thing that would be better, and that is, if I myself believe even an iota of what I have just written. I swear to you, gentlemen, that I do not really believe one thing, not ev...

If I had had the power to prevent my own birth I should certainly never have consented to accept existence under such ridiculous conditions.

If he's alive he has everything in his power! Whose fault is it he doesn't understand that

If it can’t be decided in the affirmative, it will never be decided in the negative. You know that that is the peculiarity of your heart, and all its suffering is due to it. But thank the Creator who...

If it could come about that each of us were to describe his innermost secrets –secrets which one would hesitate to tell not only to people at large, but even to one’s closest friends, nay, to fear to...

In despair there are the most intense enjoyments, especially when one is acutely conscious of the hopelessness of one's position.

In every man's memory there are things he won't reveal to others, except, perhaps, to his friends. And there are things he won't reveal even to friends, only, perhaps, to himself, and there, too, in s...

In every man, of course, a demon lies hidden-the demon of rage, the demon of lustful heat at the screams of the tortured victim, the demon of lawlessness let off the chain