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23 Quotes by Fyodor Dostoevsky to get you thinking

05/03/2024 by

I first came across Fyodor Dostoevsky many years ago, when my sister suggested I read The Brothers Karamazov. His ideas fascinated me then, so I thought it would be interesting to explore some of his many quotes.

Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky (1821–1881) was a Russian author, philosopher, and psychiatrist considered one of the greatest literary geniuses of the 19th century.

He is best known for his novels Crime and Punishment, The Brothers Karamazov, and Notes from Underground.

Dostoevsky’s literature often explores deep philosophical and psychological themes, and his works are considered classics of world literature.

So, here are some of his many quotes to get you thinking today.

Quotes by Fyodor Dostoevsky (1-12):

  1. To live without hope is to cease to live.
  2. The soul is healed by being with children.
  3. If there is no God, everything is permitted.
  4. Realists do not fear the results of their study.
  5. To love someone means to see him as God intended him.
  6. The greatest happiness is to know the source of unhappiness.
  7. Happiness does not lie in happiness but in the achievement of it.
  8. The formula ‘Two and two make five’ is not without its attractions.
  9. Man only likes to count his troubles, but he does not count his joys.
  10. There is no subject so old that something new cannot be said about it.
  11. Much unhappiness has come into the world because of bewilderment and things left unsaid.
  12. The cleverest of all, in my opinion, is the man who calls himself a fool at least once a month.

Quotes by Fyodor Dostoevsky (13-23):

  1. Deprived of meaningful work, men and women lose their reason for existence; they go stark, raving mad.
  2. Power is given only to those who dare to lower themselves and pick it up. Only one thing matters, one thing; to be able to dare!
  3. Men do not accept their prophets and slay them, but they love their martyrs and worship those whom they have tortured to death.
  4. Man, so long as he remains free, has no more constant and agonizing anxiety than finding as quickly as possible someone to worship.
  5. It seems, in fact, as though the second half of a man’s life is made up of nothing, but the habits he has accumulated during the first half.
  6. 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.
  7. One can know a man from his laugh, and if you like a man’s laugh before you know anything of him, you may confidently say that he is a good man.
  8. 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.
  9. A real gentleman, even if he loses everything he owns, must show no emotion. Money must be so far beneath a gentleman that it is hardly worth troubling about.
  10. Man is fond of counting his troubles, but he does not count his joys. If he counted them up as he ought to, he would see that every lot has enough happiness provided for it.
  11. If you were to destroy the belief in immortality in mankind, not only love but every living force on which the continuation of all life in the world depended, would dry up at once.

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