Top 500 Fyodor Dostoyevsky Quotes (2024 Update)
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151. “Life had stepped into the place of theory.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

152. “Don’t be overwise; fling yourself straight into life, without deliberation; don’t be afraid – the flood will bear you to the bank and set you safe on your feet again.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

153. “There is no subject so old that something new cannot be said about it.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

154. “Because I’m a Karamazov. Because when I fall into the abyss, I go straight into it, head down and heels up, and I’m even pleased that I’m falling in just such a humiliating position, and for me I find it beautiful.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

155. “Even as I approach the gambling hall, as soon as I hear, two rooms away, the jingle of money poured out on the table, I almost go into convulsions.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

156. “Silence is always beautiful, and a silent person is always more beautiful than one who talks.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

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

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

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

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

159. “Never mind a little dirt, if the goal is splendid!”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

160. “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

161. “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

162. “Faith does not, in the realist, spring from the miracle but the miracle from faith. If the realist once believes, then he is bound by his very realism to admit the miraculous also.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

163. “If the person laughs well, they are a good person.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

164. “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.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

165. “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

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

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

167. “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

168. “Even if we are occupied with important things and even if we attain honour or fall into misfortune, still let us remember how good it once was here, when we were all together united by a good and kind feeling which made us perhaps better than we are.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

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

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

170. “He was crushed by poverty, but the anxieties of his position had of late ceased to weigh upon him. He had given up attending to matters of practical importance; he had lost all desire to do so.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

171. “Don’t be like everyone else, even if you are the only one.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

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

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

173. “I believe there is no one deeper, lovelier, more sympathetic and more perfect than Jesus...”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

174. “People talk sometimes of a bestial cruelty, but that’s a great injustice and insult to the beasts; a beast can never be so cruel as a man, so artistically cruel. The tiger only tears and gnaws, that’s all he can do. He would never think of nailing people by the ears, even if he were able to do it.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

175. “Intelligence alone is not nearly enough when it comes to acting wisely.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

176. “Much unhappiness has come into the world because of bewilderment and things left unsaid.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

177. “It’s in despair that you find the sharpest pleasures, particularly when you are most acutely aware of the hopelessness of your position.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

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

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

179. “Suffering is part and parcel of extensive intelligence and a feeling heart.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

180. “I swear to you, sirs, that excessive consciousness is a disease – a genuine, absolute disease.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

181. “For, after all, you do grow up, you do outgrow your ideals, which turn to dust and ashes, which are shattered into fragments; and if you have no other life, you just have to build one up out of these fragments.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

182. “It is not as a child that I believe and confess Jesus Christ. My hosanna is born of a furnace of doubt.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

183. “Man is unhappy because he doesn’t know he’s happy. If anyone finds out he’ll become happy at once.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

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

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

185. “In every man’s memories there are such things as he will reveal not to everyone, but perhaps only to friends. There are also such as he will reveal not even to friends, but only to himself, and that in secret. Then, finally, there are such as a man is afraid to reveal even to himself, and every decent man will have accumulated quite a few things of this sort.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

186. “But what can a decent man speak of with most pleasure? Answer: Of himself. Well, so I will talk about myself.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

187. “There is immeasurably more left inside than what comes out in words.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

188. “Tyranny is a habit which may be developed until at last it becomes a disease. I declare that the noblest nature can become so hardened and bestial that nothing distinguishes it from that of a wild animal. Blood and power intoxicate; they help to develop callousness and debauchery.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

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

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

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

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

191. “Love the animals: God has given them the rudiments of thought and joy untroubled.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

192. “Nothing is more seductive for a man than his freedom of conscience, but nothing is a greater cause of suffering.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

193. “To achieve perfection, one must first begin by not understanding many things! And if we understand too quickly, we may not understand well.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

194. “It’s difficult to judge beauty; I am not ready yet. Beauty is a riddle.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

195. “If someone proved to me that Christ is outside the truth, and that in reality the truth were outside of Christ, then I should prefer to remain with Christ rather than with the truth.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

196. “There is a crack in my soul, and I can hear it trembling, quivering, stirring deep inside me.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

197. “It is not the brains that matter most, but that which guides them – the character, the heart, generous qualities, progressive ideas.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

198. “They tease me now, telling me it was only a dream. But does it matter whether it was a dream or reality, if the dream made known to me the truth?”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

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

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

200. “There is no sin, and there can be no sin on all the earth, which the Lord will not forgive to the truly repentant! Man cannot commit a sin so great as to exhaust the infinite love of God. Can there be a sin which could exceed the love of God?”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky