Fyodor Dostoevsky

“The genuine realist, if he is an unbeliever, will always find strength and ability to disbelieve in the miraculous, and if he is confronted with a miracle as an irrefutable fact he would rather disbelieve his own senses than admit the miraculous also.”

“If you were to destroy in mankind the belief in immortality, not only love but every living force maintaining the life of the world would at once be dried up. Moreover, nothing then would be immoral, everything would be permissible, even cannibalism.”

“It was from feeling oneself that one had reached the last barrier, that it was horrible, but that it could not be otherwise; that there was no escape for you; that you never could become a different man; that even if time and faith were still left you to change into something different you would most likely not wish to change; or if you did wish to, even then you would do nothing; because perhaps in reality there was nothing for you to change into.”

“Power is given only to him who dares to stoop and take it ... one must have the courage to dare.”

“What man wants is simply independent choice, whatever that independence may cost and wherever it may lead.”

“It sometimes happened that you might be familiar with a man for several years thinking he was a wild animal, and you would regard him with contempt. And then suddenly a moment would arrive when some uncontrollable impulse would lay his soul bare, and you would behold in it such riches, such sensitivity and warmth, such a vivid awareness of its own suffering and the suffering of others, that the scales would fall from your eyes and at first you would hardly be able to believe what you had seen and heard. The reverse also happens.”

“Of the eternal questions, nothing else: is there a God, is there immortality? And those who do not believe in God will talk of socialism or anarchy, of the transformation of all humanity on a new pattern, which all comes to the same thing, they're the same questions turned inside out.”

“An anxiety with no object or purpose in the present, and in the future nothing but endless sacrifice, by means of which he would attain nothing - that was what his days on earth held in store for him... What good was life to him? What prospects did he have? What did he have to strive for? Was he to live merely in order to exist? But a thousand times before he had been ready to give up his existence for an idea, for a hope, even for an imagining. Existence on its own had never been enough for him; he had always wanted more than that. Perhaps it was merely the strength of his own desires that made him believe he was a person to whom more was allowed than others.”

“Se une jo vetem nuk isha nopran e nurzi, por as i lig e as keqdashes nuk isha, ama edhe ndonje hiç nuk ehste se isha. Ja ku po jua them se nuk kam qene as i lig e as i poshter, po as i ndershem, nuk kam qene hero, por edhe shterpi nuk kam qene. Ne keto çaste dergjem ne qoshen time dhe vetem ndersej veten, vetem shtirem sikur kam qene njeri i keq, se, sipas meje, nje njeri qe e ka plot koken, s'ka si ben marrezi si ato te miat, vetem budalli sillet asisoj.”

“E ke vene re, Seriozha? Sikur qesh me ty duket, kurse ne te vertete nuk te qesh, te do...”

“Lere pastaj qe ka dhe jo pak pasunare qe s'i pelqen te degjojne ankimet me ze te larte te varfanjakeve. Se, sigurisht, i shqetesojne, i bezdisin me ankesat pa fund. Po, moj shpirt, varferia kurdohere e bezdisshme eshte. Ja ç'eshte, Varenjka. Renkimet e te uriturve, klithmat e zemerplasurve u prishin gjumin ca zoterinjve.”

“Twice two is four is, in my opinion, nothing but impudence.”

“Jam njeri i semure... Jam edhe tip keqdashesi. Nuk bej pjese, nderkohe, ne simpatiket. Me duket se vuaj nga melçia, ndonese vete une gje prej gjeje nuk kuptoj nga semundjet, as qe e di me saktesi ç'me dhemb. Nuk kurohem e as jam kuruar ndonjehere, pavaresisht nga respekti qe kam per mjekesine (se i shkolluar une jam, por edhe bestyd jam). Me ka hipur ne kole, nuk dua te kurohem nga inati. Ju kete kushedi as edhe e kuptoni, kurse une e kuptoj, ndonese s'jam ne gjendje t'ua shpjegoj se kujt i bej dem me kete inat timin. E di fort mire, qe as mjekeve e askujt tjeter nuk i behet vone qe jam tip inatçori, e as vete per veten nuk e çaj koken, ndonese fort mire e di qe inati eshte dem i kokes. Ngado qe ta sjellesh e kam mbushur mendjen, e kam bere top: nuk dua qe nuk dua te kurohem. Me dhemb kjo e shkrete melçi, le te dhembe, nuk paska plasur!”

“Of course my jokes are in poor taste, inappropriate, and confused; they reveal my lack of security. But that is because I have no respect for myself.”

“Me dendin me lakra, gatuar me çaj,Fryhu bark, fryhu, pelcit,.s'te kam faj!("kenge burgu")”

“Po ç'pune ke ti, mor zoteri, me çizmet e mia te shqyera dhe me berrylat e mi te grisur?”

“Duhet te qendrojne larg njeri-tjetri si fatkeqet ashtu dhe te varferit, keshtu nuk do te rendoheshin nga njeri-tjetri. Ju shkaktova aq shume fatkeqesi, qe s'i kishit patur kurre me pare ne jeten modeste te vetmitarit. Kjo me brengos, ma derrmon shpirtin.”

“Kushdo qofte, edhe njeriu i vogel, nga ata qe nuk e turbullojne ujin, qe askujt s'i bien me qafe, qe rrojne me friken e perendise, por edhe me friken per veten, shkojne me mendjen te mos ngacmojne njeri se keshtu as ate vete nuk do ta ngacmojne, do ta lene te qete ne hallet e tij, nuk deshiron qe te tjeret te futin hundet ne jeten e perditshme qe ben, nuk ia ka enda te flasin ne e ka te ri apo te vjeter jelekun, ne i ka te reja apo me mballoma çizmet, nuk ia ka enda te marrin vesh te tjeret ç'eshte duke ngrene, çfare po shkruan?... E ç'te keqe paska, moj zemer, qe une, kur shoh xhadene te prishur, eci ne maje te gishtave, shkel me kujdes per te ruajtur çizmet? Pse duhet shkruar per tjetrin qe ndonjehere nuk ka para as per te pire nje gote çaj? Sikur qenka e thene dhe e vulosur qe njerezit, te gjithe sa jane, patjeter duhet te pine çaj. Po pse e udhes qenka te shohesh ne gojen e tjetrit per te ditur ç'cope eshte duke pertypur? A fyhet njeriu keshtu? Jo, shpirti im! Perse u dashka fyer tjetri kur ai s'te ngacmon?”

“Quanto mais gosto da humanidade em geral, menos aprecio as pessoas em particular, como indivíduos.”

“Eshte e mire letersia, Varenjka, shume e mire eshte. U binda diten e trete te vizitave. Gje me peshe. Ua forcon zemren njerezve, u meson si te jetojne. C'nuk thuhet ne ato shkrime.”

“Naten s'kisha gjume, me mbyste pendimi, kot thone qe pendimi te lehteson.”

“E po, mirupafshim! Po me mbyt trishtimi, nga merzia. Seç kam nje brenge ne shpirt, Makar Aleksejeviç. As vete s'e di arsyen. E tille dite paska qene. Mirupafshim!”

“The more I love humanity in general the less I love man in particular. In my dreams, I often make plans for the service of humanity, and perhaps I might actually face crucifixion if it were suddenly necessary. Yet I am incapable of living in the same room with anyone for two days together. I know from experience. As soon as anyone is near me, his personality disturbs me and restricts my freedom. In twenty-four hours I begin to hate the best of men: one because he’s too long over his dinner, another because he has a cold and keeps on blowing his nose. I become hostile to people the moment they come close to me. But it has always happened that the more I hate men individually the more I love humanity.”

“And what's strange, what would be marvelous, is not that God should really exist; the marvel is that such an idea, the idea of the necessity of God, could enter the head of such a savage, vicious beast as man.”

“If he's honest, he'll steal; if he's human, he'll murder; if he's faithful, he'll deceive.”

“Certainly we shall rise, certainly we shall see and gladly, joyfully tell one another all that has been.”

“Where is it I've read that someone condemned to death says or thinks, an hour before his death, that if he had to live on some high rock, on such a narrow ledge that he'd only room to stand, and the ocean, everlasting darkness, everlasting solitude, everlasting tempest around him, if he had to remain standing on a square yard of space all his life, a thousand years, eternity, it were better to live so than to die at once. Only to live, to live and live! Life, whatever it may be!”

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

“Instead of giving a firm foundation for setting the conscience of man at rest forever, Thou didst choose all that is exceptional, vague and enigmatic.”

“А Лиза, только что удалился Алёша, тотчас же отвернула щеколду, приотворила капельку дверь, вложила в щель свой палец и, захлопнув дверь, изо всей силы придавила его. Секунд через десять, высвободив руку, она тихо, медленно прошла на своё кресло, села, вся выпрямившись, и стала пристально смотреть на свой почерневший пальчик и на выдавившуюся из-под ногтя кровь. Губы её дрожали, и она быстро, быстро шептала про себя:- Подлая, подлая, подлая, подлая!”

“I tell Thee that man is tormented by no greater anxiety than to find someone quickly to whom he can hand over that gift of freedom with which the ill-fated creatures is born. But only one who can appease their conscience can take over their freedom […] Instead of taking men's freedom from them, Thou didst make it greater than ever! Didst Thou forget that man prefers peace, and even death, to freedom of choice in the knowledge of good and evil?”

“Pass us by, and forgive us our happiness”

“I believe the best definition of man is the ungrateful biped.”

“To care only for well-being seems to me positively ill-bred. Whether it’s good or bad, it is sometimes very pleasant, too, to smash things.”

“To kill for murder is a punishment incomparably worse than the crime itself. Murder by legal sentence is immeasurably more terrible than murder by brigands. Anyone murdered by brigands, whose throat is cut at night in a wood, or something of that sort, must surely hope to escape till the very last minute. There have been instances when a man has still hoped for escape, running or begging for mercy after his throat was cut. But in the other case all that last hope, which makes dying ten times as easy, is taken away for certain. There is the sentence, and the whole awful torture lies in the fact that there is certainly no escape, and there is no torture in the world more terrible.”

“I believe like a child that suffering will be healed and made up for, that all the humiliating absurdity of human contradictions will vanish like a pitiful mirage, like the despicable fabrication of the impotent and infinitely small Euclidean mind of man, that in the world's finale, at the moment of eternal harmony, something so precious will come to pass that it will suffice for all hearts, for the comforting of all resentments, for the atonement of all the crimes of humanity, for all the blood that they've shed; that it will make it not only possible to forgive but to justify all that has happened.”

“He vividly recalled those old doubts and perplexities, and it seemed to him that it was no mere chance that he recalled them now. It struck him as strange and grotesque, that he should have stopped at the same spot as before, as though he actually imagined he could think the same thoughts, be interested in the same theories and pictures that had interested him ... so short a time ago. He felt it almost amusing, and yet it wrung his heart. ...It seemed to him, he had cut himself off from everyone and from everything at that moment.”

“He walked on without resting. He had a terrible longing for some distraction, but he did not know what to do, what to attempt. A new overwhelming sensation was gaining more and more mastery over him every moment; this was an immeasurable, almost physical, repulsion for everything surrounding him, an obstinate, malignant feeling of hatred. All who met him were loathsome to him - he loathed their faces, their movements, their gestures. If anyone had addressed him, he felt that he might have spat at him or bitten him... .”

“The cleverest of all, in my opinion, is the man who calls himself a fool at least once a month.”

“We sometimes encounter people, even perfect strangers, who begin to interest us at first sight, somehow suddenly, all at once, before a word has been spoken”

“And the more I drink the more I feel it. That's why I drink too. I try to find sympathy and feeling in drink.... I drink so that I may suffer twice as much!”

“Walking along the crowded rowHe met the one he used to know.”

“The formula ‘two and two make five’ is not without its attractions.”

“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.”

“In every idea of genius or in every new human idea, or, more simply still, in every serious human idea born in anyone's brain, there is something that cannot possibly be conveyed to others.”

“Man is bound to lie about himself”

“And so, since then, I've been preaching. Moreover...I love those who laugh at me even more than the rest. Why, I don't know...but so be it. They say that even now I don't make much sense...”

“The soul is healed by being with children.”

“Without God all things are permitted.”

“Is there beauty in Sodom? Believe me, that for the immense mass of mankind beauty is found in Sodom. Did you know that secret? The awful thing is that beauty is mysterious as well as terrible. God and the devil are fighting there and the battlefield is the heart of man.”