Fyodor Dostoyevsky Quotes

He saw that the Prisoner had listened carefully all the time, looking gently in his face--But evidently he did not want to reply. The old man longed for Him to say something, however bitter and terrib...

He spoke of many things, he seemed anxious before the moment of death to say everything he had not said in his life, and not simply for the sake of instructing them, but as though thirsting to share w...

He was hopelessly in debt to his landlady, and was afraid of meeting her.

Here, perhaps, is the only man in the world who, were you to leave him alone and without money on the square of some unknown city with a population of a million, would not perish, would not die of col...

Hm ... yes ... a man holds the fate of the world in his two hands, and yet, simply because he is afraid, he just lets things drift -- that is a truism ... I wonder what men are most afraid of ...

Hm … yes, all is in a man's hands and he lets it all slip from cowardice, that's an axiom

How can I forgive his tormentors?’ she bids all the saints, all the martyrs, all the angels and archangels to fall down together with her and plead for the pardon of all without discrimination.

How can you tell a man there’s nothing to do? I can’t imagine a situation in which there could ever be nothing to do! Do it for mankind and don’t worry about the rest. There’s so much to do that a lif...

How thin she is in her coffin, how sharp her nose has grown! Her eyelashes lie straight as arrows. And, you know, when she fell, nothing was crushed, nothing was broken! Nothing but that handful of bl...

I agree that two times two makes four is an excellent thing; but if we are dispensing praise, then two times two makes five is sometimes a most charming little thing as well.

I am a ridiculous person. Now they call me a madman. That would be a promotion if it were not that I remain as ridiculous in their eyes as before. But now I do not resent it, they are all dear to me n...

I ask, I demand to be respected! Shatov went on shouting. Not for my person--to hell with it--but for something else, just for now, for a few words...We are two beings, and we have come together in in...

I can but thank you, he said, in a tone too respectful to be sincere, for your kindness in letting me speak, for I have often noticed that our Liberals never allow other people to have an opinion of t...

I cannot understand why the world is arranged as it is.

I create entire romances in my dreams.

I did not bow down to you, I bowed down to all the suffering of humanity,

I do not wish you much happiness--it would bore you; I do not wish you trouble either; but, following the people's philosophy, I will simply repeat: 'Live more' and try somehow not to be too bored; th...

I don't know how it is with others, and my feeling is that I cannot be like any other. Any other thinks, and then at once thinks something else. I cannot think something else, I think one thing all my...

I don't need money, or, better, it's not money that I need; it's not even power; I need only what is obtained by power and simply cannot be obtained without power: the solitary and calm awareness of s...

I don't need you to tell me I'm not well, though I don't really know what's wrong with me; I think I'm five times healthier than you are.