Fyodor Dostoyevsky: Quotations

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821-1881)

“To go wrong in one’s own way is better than to go right in someone else’s.”

Crime and Punishment

“Pain and suffering are always inevitable for a large intelligence and a deep heart. The really great men must, I think, have great sadness on earth.”

Crime and Punishment

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

Crime and Punishment

“It takes something more than intelligence to act intelligently.”

Crime and Punishment

“Sarcasm: the last refuge of modest and chaste-souled people when the privacy of their soul is coarsely and intrusively invaded.”

Notes from the Underground

“Above all, don’t lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love.”

The Brothers Karamazov

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

The Brothers Karamazov