Quotes from Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Right or wrong, it's very pleasant to break something from time to time.

The darker the night, the brighter the stars, The deeper the grief, the closer is God!

Man only likes to count his troubles; he doesn't calculate his happiness.

People speak sometimes about the "bestial" cruelty of man, but that is terribly unjust and offensive to beasts, no animal could ever be so cruel as a man, so artfully, so artistically cruel.

It takes something more than intelligence to act intelligently.

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

The man who is happy is fulfilling the purpose of existence.

Don't let us forget that the causes of human actions are usually immeasurably more complex and varied than our subsequent explanations of them.

My God, a moment of bliss. Why, isn't that enough for a whole lifetime?

The world says: "You have needs -- satisfy them. You have as much right as the rich and the mighty. Don't hesitate to satisfy your needs; indeed, expand your needs and demand more." This is the worldly doctrine of today. And they believe that this is freedom. The result for the rich is isolation and suicide, for the poor, envy and murder.

The soul is healed by being with children.

Love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing compared with love in dreams.

To go wrong in one's own way is better then to go right in someone else's.

If you wish to glimpse inside a human soul and get to know a man, don't bother analyzing his ways of being silent, of talking, of weeping, of seeing how much he is moved by noble ideas; you will get better results if you just watch him laugh. If he laughs well, he's a good man.

We're always thinking of eternity as an idea that cannot be understood, something immense. But why must it be? What if, instead of all this, you suddenly find just a little room there, something like a village bath-house, grimy, and spiders in every corner, and that's all eternity is. Sometimes, you know, I can't help feeling that that's what it is.

Taking a new step, uttering a new word, is what people fear most.

Nothing in this world is harder than speaking the truth, nothing easier than flattery.

What is hell? I maintain that it is the suffering of being unable to love.

There are... things which a man is afraid to tell even to himself, and every decent man has a number of such things stored away in his mind.

But how could you live and have no story to tell?

The more stupid one is, the closer one is to reality. The more stupid one is, the clearer one is. Stupidity is brief and artless, while intelligence squirms and hides itself. Intelligence is unprincipled, but stupidity is honest and straightforward.

If you want to be respected by others, the great thing is to respect yourself. Only by that, only by self-respect will you compel others to respect you.

To be too conscious is an illness — a real thoroughgoing illness.

Yet, I didn't understand that she was intentionally disguising her feelings with sarcasm; that was usually the last resort of people who are timid and chaste of heart, whose souls have been coarsely and impudently invaded; and who, until the last moment, refuse to yield out of pride and are afraid to express their own feelings to you.