Fyodor Dostoyevsky

“I am a dreamer. I know so little of real life that I just can’t help re-living such moments as these in my dreams, for such moments are something I have very rarely experienced.”

“Nenorocirea altuia nu sădeşte în mintea nimănui înţelepciunea.”

“La ce bun să mai numărăm zilele, cînd e de ajuns una singură pentru ca omul să cunoască pe deplin fericirea!”

“viaţa e un rai în care toţi ne desfătăm, numai că noi nu vrem să ne dăm seama de asta, căci dacă am vrea, chiar mîine tot pâmîntul ar fi un rai.”

“... 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! I am a man because I err! You never reach any truth without making fourteen mistakes and very likely a hundred and fourteen. And a fine thing too, in its way; but we can't even make mistakes on our own account! Talk nonsense, but talk your own nonsense, and I'll kiss you for it. To go wrong in one's way is better than to go right in someone else's.”

“Nós todos somos gente boníssima a ponto de sermos cômicos”

“The whole work of man really seems to consist in nothing but proving to himself every minute that he is a man and not a piano key.”

“At first it was simply liking, Nastenka, but now, now !I am just in the same position as you were when you went to him with your bundle. In a worse position than you, Nastenka,because he cared for no one else as you do.”

“fiindcă totdeauna am grijă să-mi amintesc că punctualitatea este politeţea regilor”

“măritişul ei fusese, fără doar şi poate, efectul unor influenţe străine, rezultatul frămîntârilor unui suflet captiv”

“Listen, then: we are not with you, but with him, that is our secret! For a long time now - eight centuries already - we have not been with you, but with him. Exactly eight centuries ago we took from him what you so indignantly rejected, that last gift he offered you when he showed you all the kingdoms of the earth: we took Rome and the sword of Caesar from him, and proclaimed ourselves sole rulers of the earth, the only rulers, though we have not yet succeeded in bringing our cause to its full conclusion.”

“Is it possible that I've suffered so that I, together with my evil deeds and sufferings, should be manure for someone's future harmony? I want to see with my own eyes the hind lie down with the lion, and the murdered man rise up and embrace his murderer.”

“Aldatmaca,göz boyama ve el çabukluklarından bulanık bir dünya yarattığınızı bile bile,kime neden gücendiğinizi kestiremeden,bütün bu aldatmacalar,karışıklıklar arasında içiniz sızlar da sızlar;bilmedikleriniz arttıkça sızılarınız o ölçüde çoğalır.”

“We all come out from Gogol's 'Overcoat'.”

“The righteous man departs, but his light remains.”

“Remember, too, every day, and whenever you can, repeat to yourself, "Lord, have mercy on all who appear before Thee today." For every hour and every moment thousands of men leave life on this earth, and their souls appear before God. And how many of them depart in solitude, unknown, sad, dejected that no one mourns for them or even knows whether they have lived or not!”

“And man has actually invented God. And what's strange, what would be marvellous, 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. So holy it is, so touching, so wise and so great a credit it does to man.”

“A hundred suspicions don't make a proof.”

“Delicacy and dignity are taught by one's own heart, not by a dancing master.”

“O sol vai nascer e – olhem para ele, por acaso não é um cadáver? Tudo está morto, e há cadáveres por todas as partes”

“Od našeg razgovora, naravno, nije bilo ništa. Ja nisam znao šta da joj kažem, a ona, verovatno ne bi razumela. Samo sam gorko zaplakao, i tako otišao ne rekavši joj ništa.”

“It's precisely in despair that you find the most intense pleasure, especially if you are already powerfully conscious of the hopelessness of your predicament.”

“...mene ponekad obuzimaju časovi takva jada... Jer mi se već počinje činiti u tim časovima da nipošto nisam sposoban da otpočnem živjeti pravim životom, jer mi se već činilo da sam izgubio svaki takt, svaki osjećaj za ono što je pravo, zbiljsko; jer nakon mojih noći fantaziranja snalaze me već časovi otrežnjavanja, koji su užasni! A onamo čuješ kako oko tebe grmi i vitla se u životnom vihoru svjetina, čuješ, vidiš kako žive ljudi, vidiš da njima nije život zabranjen, da se njihov život neće razletjeti kao san, kao prikaza, da se njihov život vječito obnavlja, da je vječito nov, i ni jedan sat u njemu ne nalikuje na drugi — a kako je sjetna i do nesklapnosti jednolična zazorljiva fantazija, robinja sjene, ideje, prvoga oblaka, koji će iznenada da zastre sunce i jadom da stegne pravo petrogradsko srce što toliko dršce za svojim suncem — pa i kakva je fantazija u jadu! Osjećaš da ona napokon sustaje, iscrpljuje se u vječitom naporu ta neiscrpna fantazija, jer postaješ i muževan, ostavljaju te tvoji predašnji ideali; rasipaju se u prašinu, u mrvež; ako pak nemaš drugoga života, moraš ga graditi iz toga istoga mrveža. A međutim, duša moli i želi nešto drugo! I uzalud sanjar čeprka, kao po pepelu, po starim svojim sanjama i traži u tom pepelu bilo kakvu iskricu da je raspuše, da obnovljenim ognjem zagrije ohladnjelo srce i u njem uskrisi sve što je nekada bilo tako milo, što je diralo dušu, što je upaljivalo krv, što je otimalo suze iz očiju i tako raskošno zavaravalo!”

“He is a man of intelligence, but to act sensibly, intelligence is not enough.”

“Again it became suddenly plain and perceptible to him that he had just told a fearful lie - that he would never now be able to speak freely of everything - that he would never again be able to speak of anything to anyone.”

“Actions are sometimes performed in a masterly and most cunning way, while the direction of the actions is deranged and dependent on various morbid impressions - it's like a dream.”

“She looked much younger than her age, indeed, which is almost always the case with women who retain serenity of spirit, sensitiveness and pure sincere warmth of heart to old age.”

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

“The servants used to say, 'he read himself silly.”

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

“He was in the hospital from the middle of Lent till after Easter. When he was better, he remembered the dreams he had had while he was feverish and delirious. He dreamt that the whole world was condemned to a terrible new strange plague that had come to Europe from the depths of Asia. All were to be destroyed except a very few chosen. Some new sorts of microbes were attacking the bodies of men, but these microbes were endowed with intelligence and will. Men attacked by them became at once mad and furious. But never had men considered themselves so intellectual and so completely in possession of the truth as these sufferers, never had they considered their decisions, their scientific conclusions, their moral convictions so infallible. Whole villages, whole towns and peoples went mad from the infection. All were excited and did not understand one another. Each thought that he alone had the truth and was wretched looking at the others, beat himself on the breast, wept, and wrung his hands. They did not know how to judge and could not agree what to consider evil and what good; they did not know whom to blame, whom to justify. Men killed each other in a sort of senseless spite. They gathered together in armies against one another, but even on the march the armies would begin attacking each other, the ranks would be broken and the soldiers would fall on each other, stabbing and cutting, biting and devouring each other. The alarm bell was ringing all day long in the towns; men rushed together, but why they were summoned and who was summoning them no one knew. The most ordinary trades were abandoned, because everyone proposed his own ideas, his own improvements, and they could not agree. The land too was abandoned. Men met in groups, agreed on something, swore to keep together, but at once began on something quite different from what they had proposed. They accused one another, fought and killed each other. There were conflagrations and famine. All men and all things were involved in destruction. The plague spread and moved further and further. Only a few men could be saved in the whole world. They were a pure chosen people, destined to found a new race and a new life, to renew and purify the earth, but no one had seen these men, no one had heard their words and their voices.”

“At such times I felt something was drawing me away, and I kept fancying that if I walked straight on, far, far away and reached that line where the sky and earth meet, there I should find the key to the mystery, there I should see a new life a thousand times richer and more turbulent than ours.”

“And I fancy, besides, that we seem like such different people ... through various circumstances, that we cannot perhaps have many points in common. But yet I don't believe in that last idea myself, for it often only seems that there are no points in common, when there really are some ... it's just laziness that makes people classify themselves according to appearances, and fail to find anything in common.... But perhaps I am boring you? You seem ...”

“As soon as you have finished telling us anything, you seem to be ashamed of what you've said," Aglaia observed suddenly. "Why is that?”

“Why, you are so eaten up with pride and vanity that you'll end by eating up one another, that's what I prophecy.”

“First you have to buy powder, pistol powder, not the damp, and not as coarse as for a cannon. Then you have to put the powder in first, and get some felt off a door. And then you have to put the bullet in afterwards, and not the bullet before the powder, or it won't go off. Do you hear, Keller? or else it won't go off. Ha-ha! Isn't that a magnificent reason, friend Keller?”

“I am a ridiculous man. They call me a madman now. That would be a distinct rise in my social position were it not that they still regard me as being as ridiculous as ever.”

“All of a sudden I became aware of a little star in one of those patches and I began looking at it intently. That was because the little star gave me an idea: I made up my mind to kill myself that night. I had made up my mind to kill myself already two months before and, poor as I am, I bought myself an excellent revolver and loaded it the same day. But two months had elapsed and it was still lying in the drawer. I was so utterly indifferent to everything that I was anxious to wait for the moment when I would not be so indifferent and then kill myself. Why -- I don't know.”

“Let me add to this that in every idea emanating from genius, or even in every serious human idea—born in the human brain—there always remains something—some sediment—which cannot be expressed to others, though one wrote volumes and lectured upon it for five-and-thirty years. There is always a something, a remnant, which will never come out from your brain, but will remain there with you, and you alone, for ever and ever, and you will die, perhaps, without having imparted what may be the very essence of your idea to a single living soul.”

“Occasionally I was so much better that I could go out; but the streets used to put me in such a rage that I would lock myself up for days rather than go out, even if I were well enough to do so! I could not bear to see all those preoccupied, anxious-looking creatures continuously surging along the streets past me! Why are they always anxious? What is the meaning of their eternal care and worry? It is their wickedness, their perpetual detestable malice—that's what it is—they are all full of malice, malice!”

“Yes, the laws of self-preservation and of self-destruction are equally powerful in this world. The devil will hold his empire over humanity until a limit of time which is still unknown. You laugh? You do not believe in the devil? Scepticism as to the devil is a French idea, and it is also a frivolous idea. Do you know who the devil is? Do you know his name? Although you don't know his name you make a mockery of his form, following the example of Voltaire. You sneer at his hoofs, at his tail, at his horns—all of them the produce of your imagination! In reality the devil is a great and terrible spirit, with neither hoofs, nor tail, nor horns; it is you who have endowed him with these attributes! But… he is not the question just now!”

“Often a man endures for several years, submits and suffers the cruellest punishments, and then suddenly breaks out over some minute trifle, almost nothing at all.”

“In short, the right given to one man to inflict corporal punishment on another is one of the ulcers of society, one of the most powerful destructive agents of every germ and every budding attempt at civilization, the fundamental cause of its certain and irretrievable destruction.”

“Generally speaking, our prisoners were capable of loving animals, and if they had been allowed they would have delighted to rear large numbers of domestic animals and birds in the prison. And I wonder what other activity could better have softened and refined their harsh and brutal natures than this. But it was not allowed. Neither the regulations nor the nature of the prison made it possible.”

“Reality is infinitely diverse, compared with even the subtlest conclusions of abstract thought, and does not allow of clear-cut and sweeping distinctions. Reality resists classification.”

“I remember that he was always trying to expound to me in his broken Russian some special system of astronomy he had invented. I was told that he had once published it, but the learned world had only laughed at him. I think his wits were a little deranged.”

“Very often among a certain highly intelligent type of people, quite paradoxical ideas will establish themselves. But they have suffered so much in their lives for these ideas, and have paid so high a price for them that it becomes very painful, indeed almost impossible, for them to part with them.”

“You are in the grip of a desire for martyrdom and self-sacrifice; conquer this desire as well, set aside your pages and your intention--and then you will overcome everything. You will put to shame all your pride and your demon! You will win, you will attain freedom...”

“Christ, too, will forgive, if only you attain to forgiving yourself...Oh, no, no, do not believe that I have spoken a blasphemy: even if you do not attain to reconciliation with yourself and forgiveness of yourself, even then He will forgive you for your intention and for your great suffering.”

“In sinning, each man sins against all, and each man is at least partly guilty for another's sin. There is no isolated sin.”