Top 500 Fyodor Dostoyevsky Quotes (2024 Update)
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251. “There is no idea, no fact, which could not be vulgarized and presented in a ludicrous light.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

252. “Drive nature out of the door and it will fly in at the window.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

253. “And if there’s love, you can do without happiness too. Even with sorrow, life is sweet.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

254. “I have no self-respect. But can a man of acute sensibility respect himself at all?”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

255. “They were like two enemies in love with one another.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

256. “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

257. “The consciousness of life is higher than life.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

258. “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

259. “I swear to you gentlemen, that to be overly conscious is a sickness, a real, thorough sickness.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

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

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

261. “In a morbid condition of the brain, dreams often have a singular actuality, vividness, and extraordinary semblance of reality.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

262. “Life is in ourselves and not in the external.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

263. “There are strange friendships: two friends almost want to devour each other, and they spend their entire lives living that way, but meanwhile they cannot part.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

264. “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

265. “God is the pain of the fear of death.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

266. “But I always liked side-paths, little dark back-alleys behind the main road- there one finds adventures and surprises, and precious metal in the dirt.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

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

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

268. “In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

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

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

270. “For what is man without desires, without free will, and without the power of choice but a stop in an organ pipe?”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

271. “Look how our young people commit suicide, without asking themselves Hamlet’s question what there is beyond, without a sign of such a question, as though all that relates to the soul and to what awaits us beyond the grave had long been erased in their minds and buried under the sands.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

272. “Let us be servants in order to be leaders.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

273. “I am a sick man... I am a spiteful man. I am an unattractive man. I.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

274. “Beyond the grave they will find nothing but death. But we shall keep the secret, and for their happiness we shall allure them with the reward of heaven and eternity.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

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

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

276. “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

277. “The more you succeed in loving, the more you’ll be convinced at the existence of God and the immortality of your soul.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

278. “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

279. “In that case, of course, people are not spiteful in silence, but moan; but they are not candid moans, they are malignant moans, and the malignancy is the whole point. The enjoyment of the sufferer finds expression in those moans; if he did not feel enjoyment in them he would not moan.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

280. “Make us your slaves, but feed us.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

281. “I think I could stand anything, any suffering, only to be able to say and to repeat to myself every moment, ‘I exist.’ In thousands of agonies – I exist. I’m tormented on the rack – but I exist! Though I sit alone in a pillar – I exist! 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

282. “I have seen the truth. It is not as though I had invented it in my mind. I have seen it, SEEN IT and the living image of it has filled my soul forever...”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

283. “A cultivated and decent man cannot be vain without setting a fearfully high standard for himself, and without despising and almost hating himself at certain moments.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

284. “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

285. “A widow, the mother of a family, and from her heart she produces chords to which my whole being responds.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

286. “What if man is not really a scoundrel, man in general, I mean, the whole race of mankind-then all the rest is prejudice, simply artificial terrors and there are no barriers and it’s all as it should be.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

287. “What do you think?” shouted Razumihin, louder than ever, “you think I am attacking them for talking nonsense? Not a bit! I like them to talk nonsense. That’s man’s one privilege over all creation. Through error you come to the truth!”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

288. “I am strongly convinced that not only too much consciousness but even any consciousness at all is a sickness.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

289. “I am told that the proximity of punishment arouses real repentance in the criminal and sometimes awakens a feeling of genuine remorse in the most hardened heart; I am told this is due to fear.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

290. “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; this useless wish I am adding on my own.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

291. “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

292. “We do not understand that life is paradise, for it suffices only to wish to understand it, and at once paradise will appear in front of us in its beauty.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

293. “If you can put the question, ‘Am I or am I not responsible for my acts?’ then you are responsible.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

294. “Only by self-respect will you compel others to respect you.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

295. “There’s nothing in the world more difficult than candor, and nothing easier than flattery.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

296. “The prince says that the world will be saved by beauty! And I maintain that the reason he has such playful ideas is that he is in love.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

297. “I tell you solemnly, that I have many times tried to become an insect. But I was not equal even to that. I swear, gentlemen, that to be too conscious is an illness- a real thorough-going illness.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

298. “To be acutely conscious is a disease, a real, honest-to-goodness disease.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

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

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

300. “Hold your tongue; you won’t understand anything. If there is no God, then I am God.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky