Top 500 Fyodor Dostoyevsky Quotes (2026 Update)
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151. “Being at a loss to resolve these questions, I am resolved to leave them without any resolution.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

152. “Lying is a delightful thing for it leads to the truth.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

153. “I gave up caring about anything, and all the problems disappeared. And it was after that that I found out the truth. I learnt the truth last November on the third of November, to be precise and I remember every instant since.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

154. “People. People. Endless noise. And I am so tired. And I would like to sleep under trees; red ones, blue ones, swirling passionate ones.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

155. “My soul bleeds and the blood steadily, silently, disturbingly slowly, swallows me whole.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

156. “I worship her, Alyosha, worship her. Only she doesn’t see it. No, she still thinks I don’t love her enough. And she tortures me, tortures me with her love. The past was nothing! In the past it was only that infernal body of hers that tortured me, but now I’ve taken all her soul into my soul and through her I’ve become a man. Will they marry us? If they don’t I will die of jealousy. I imagine something every day...”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

157. “Accept suffering and achieve atonement through it – that is what you must do.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

158. “I am too young and I’ve loved you too much.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

159. “And you’re sorry that the ephemeral beauty has faded so rapidly, so irretrievably, that it flashed so deceptively and pointlessly before your eyes – you’re sorry, for you didn’t even have time to fall in love...”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

160. “Wealth is the number of things one can do without.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

161. “For a woman, all resurrection, all salvation, from whatever perdition, lies in love; in fact, it is her only way to it.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

162. “It was a wonderful night, such a night as is only possible when we are young, dear reader.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

163. “Hell is the inability to love.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

164. “With love one can live even without happiness.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

165. “Neither a person nor a nation can exist without some higher idea. And there is only one higher idea on earth, and it is the idea of the immortality of the human soul, for all other “higher” ideas of life by which humans might live derive from that idea alone.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

166. “The man who is happy is fulfilling the purpose of existence.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

167. “One can’t understand everything at once, we can’t begin with perfection all at once! In order to reach perfection one must begin by being ignorant of a great deal. And if we understand things too quickly, perhaps we shan’t understand them thoroughly.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

168. “It’s the moon that makes it so still, weaving some mystery.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

169. “Only one thing matters, one thing; to be able to dare!”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

170. “In the realist, faith is not born from miracles, but miracles from faith.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

171. “I want to suffer and be purified by suffering!”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

172. “Talking nonsense is man’s only privilege that distinguishes him from all other organisms.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

173. “They were renewed by love; the heart of each held infinite sources of life for the heart of the other.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

174. “If man has one good memory to go by, that may be enough to save him.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

175. “A dead man has no age.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

176. “Whoever steps on the lowest step will surely step on the highest.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

177. “Man is stupid, phenomenally stupid.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

178. “Man is fond of counting his troubles, but he does not count his joys. If he counted them up as he ought to, he would see that every lot has enough happiness provided for it.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

179. “Every ant knows the formula of its ant-hill, every bee knows the formula of its beehive. They know it in their own way, not in our way. Only humankind does not know its own formula.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

180. “For the secret of man’s being is not only to live but to have something to live for. Without a stable conception of the object of life, man would not consent to go on living, and would rather destroy himself than remain on earth, though he had bread in abundance.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

181. “You are told a lot about your education, but some beautiful, sacred memory, preserved since childhood, is perhaps the best education of all.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

182. “Don’t think I’m talking nonsense because I’m drunk. I’m not a bit drunk. Brandy’s all very well, but I need two bottles to make me drunk.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

183. “It’s not miracles that generate faith, but faith that generates miracles.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

184. “Right attitudes produces right action.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

185. “It suddenly seemed to me that I was lonely, that everyone was forsaking me and going away from me.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

186. “How can a man of consciousness have the slightest respect for himself.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

187. “Life is paradise, and we are all in paradise, but we refuse to see it.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

188. “The whole question here is: am I a monster, or a victim myself?”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

189. “He who desires to see the living God face-to-face should not seek him in the empty, firmament of his mind, but in human love.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

190. “And, indeed, I will ask on my own account here, an idle question: which is better – cheap happiness or exalted sufferings? Well, which is better?”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

191. “Full freedom will come only when it makes no difference whether to live or not to live. That’s the goal for everyone.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

192. “My life is ending, I know that well, but every day that is left me I feel how my earthly life is in touch with a new infinite, unknown, but approaching life, the nearness of which sets my soul quivering with rapture, my mind glowing and my heart weeping with joy.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

193. “Love every leaf, every ray of light. Love the animals, love the plants, love each separate thing. Loving all, you will perceive the mystery of God in all.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

194. “Besides, nowadays, almost all capable people are terribly afraid of being ridiculous, and are miserable because of it.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

195. “I have so much to say to you that I am afraid I shall tell you nothing.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

196. “A beast can never be as cruel as a human being, so artistically, so picturesquely cruel.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

197. “Pass us by, and forgive us our happiness.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

198. “He does not like showing his feelings and would rather do a cruel thing than open his heart freely.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

199. “Russia was a slave in Europe but would be a master in Asia.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

200. “If not reason, then the devil.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky