Top 500 Fyodor Dostoyevsky Quotes (2025 Update)
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201. “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

202. “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

203. “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

204. “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

205. “I’m sorry this letter is so long. I didn’t have time to make it shorter.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

206. “The meaning is, that you all bore me to tears and I’d like to be left alone,′ Raskolnikov answered calmly.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

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

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

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

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

209. “Words are not deeds.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

210. “If the people around you are spiteful and callous and will not hear you, fall down before them and beg their forgiveness; for in truth you are to blame for their not wanting to hear you.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

211. “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

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

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

213. “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

214. “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

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

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

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

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

217. “Every one is really responsible to all men for all men and for everything.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

218. “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

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

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

220. “To be in love is not the same as loving. You can be in love with a woman and still hate her.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

221. “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

222. “But man is a fickle and disreputable creature and perhaps, like a chess-player, is interested in the process of attaining his goal rather than the goal itself.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

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

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

224. “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

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

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

226. “There is no idea, no fact, which could not be vulgarized and presented in a ludicrous light.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

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

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

228. “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

229. “It is necessary that every man have at least somewhere to go. For there are times when one absolutely must go at least somewhere!”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

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

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

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

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

232. “Humanity can live without science, it can live without bread, but it cannot live without beauty. Without beauty, there would be nothing left to do in this life. Here the secret lies. Here lies the entire story.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

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

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

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

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

235. “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

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

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

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

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

238. “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

239. “You can’t be angry with me, because I am a hundred times more severely punished than you, if only by the fact that I shall never see you again.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

240. “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

241. “Men reject their prophets and slay them, but they love their martyrs and honor those they have slain.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

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

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

243. “Love a man, even in his sin, for that love is a likeness of the divine love, and is the summit of love on earth.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

244. “Life is what matters, life alone – the continuous, eternal process of discovering life – and not the discovery itself.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

245. “It was a marvelous night, the sort of night one only experiences when one is young. The sky was so bright, and there were so many stars that, gazing upward, one couldn’t help wondering how so many whimsical, wicked people could live under such a sky.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

246. “Man, so long as he remains free, has no more constant and agonizing anxiety than find as quickly as possible someone to worship.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

247. “Latterly he tormented me, too: it was all quite natural, human beings are created in order to torment one another.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

248. “Men do not accept their prophets and slay them, but they love their martyrs and worship those whom they have tortured to death.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

249. “Everything will come in due course, if you have the gumption to wait for it.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

250. “It is man’s unique privilege, among all other organisms. By pursuing falsehood you will arrive at the truth!”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky