Quotes by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

You sensed that you should be following a different path, a more ambitious one, you felt that you were destined for other things but you had no idea how to achieve them and in your misery you began to hate everything around you.

- What is a Socialist?- Thats when all are equal and all have property in common, there are no marriages, and everyone has any religion and laws he likes best. You are not old enough to understand that yet.

Ah, Misha, he has a stormy spirit. His mind is in bondage. He is haunted by a great, unsolved doubt. He is one of those who dont want millions, but an answer to their questions.

Listen! This is where it began but I keep getting muddled... The fact of the matter is that I now want to recall everything, every trifle, every little detail. I still want to collect my thoughts and - I cant, and now there are these little details, these little details...

I am a wicked man... But do you know, gentlemen, what was the main point about my wickedness? The whole thing, precisely was, the greatest nastiness precisely lay in my being shamefully conscious every moment, even in moments of the greatest bile, that I was not only not a wicked man but was not even an embittered man, that I was simply frightening sparrows in vain, and pleasing myself with it.

Its life that matters, nothing but life—the process of discovering, the everlasting and perpetual process, not the discovery itself, at all.

Every man has some reminiscences which he would not tell to everyone, but only to his friends. He has others which he would not reveal even to his friends, but only to himself, and that in secret. But finally there are still others which a man is even afraid to tell himself, and every decent man has a considerable number of such things stored away. That is, one can even say that the more decent he is, the greater the number of such things in his mind.

I drink because I wish to multiply my sufferings.

You dont feed nightingales on fairy-tales

Weve got facts, they say. But facts arent everything; at least half the battle consists in how one makes use of them!

Fathers, provoke not your children to wrath.

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.

In any case, you must remember, my dearest, that the main strength of innocence is innocence itself. farewell.

I love her with all my soul. Why, she is a child! Shes a child now — a real child. Oh! you know nothing about it at all, I see.And are you assured, at the same time, that you love Aglaya too?Yes — yes — oh; yes!How so? Do you want to make out that you love them BOTH?Yes — yes — both! I do!Excuse me, prince, but think what you are saying! Recollect yourself!Without Aglaya — I — I MUST see Aglaya! — I shall die in my sleep very soon — I thought I was dying in my sleep last night. Oh! if Aglaya only knew all — I mean really, REALLY all! Because she must know ALL — thats the first condition towards understanding. Why cannot we ever know all about another, especially when that other has been guilty? But I dont know what Im talking about — Im so confused. You pained me so dreadfully. Surely — surely Aglaya has not the same expression now as she had at the moment when she ran away? Oh, yes! I am guilty and I know it — I know it! Probably I am in fault all round — I dont quite know how — but I am in fault, no doubt. There is something else, but I cannot explain it to you, Evgenie Pavlovitch. I have no words; but Aglaya will understand. I have always believed Aglaya will understand — I am assured she will.No, prince, she will not. Aglaya loved like a woman, like a human being, not like an abstract spirit. Do you know what, my poor prince? The most probable explanation of the matter is that you never loved either the one or the other in reality.

You will have many enemies, but even your foes will love you. Life will bring you many misfortunes, but you will find your happiness in them, and will bless life and will make others bless it--which is what matters most.

To go wrong in ones own way is better than to go right in someone elses.

And what if there are only spiders there, or something of that sort

Lying to ourselves is more deeply ingrained than lying to others.

I love it when people lie! Lying is only mans privilege over all other organisms. Lying is what makes me a man.

The mystery of human existence lies not in just staying alive, but in finding something to live for.