Fyodor Dostoyevsky Quotes

“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.”

“Moreover, in order to understand any man one must be deliberate and careful to avoid forming prejudices and mistaken ideas, which are very difficult to correct and get over afterwards.”

“I am a fool with a heart but no brains, and you are a fool with brains but no heart; and we’re both unhappy, and we both suffer.”

“Perhaps," you will add, grinning, "those who have never been slapped will also not understand" - thereby politely hinting that I, too, may have experienced a slap in my life, and am therefore speaking as a connoisseur.”

“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. I am going to dream about you the whole night, the whole week, the whole year.”

“He was one of the numerous and varied legion of dullards, of half-animated abortions, conceited, half-educated coxcombs, who attach themselves to the idea most in fashion only to vulgarize it and who caricature every cause they serve, however sincerely.”

“A cultivated and decent man cannot be vain without setting a fearfully high standard for himself, and without despising and almost hating himself at certain moments.”

“...there is no explaining anything by reasoning and so it is useless to reason.”

“I want peace; yes, I'd sell the whole world for a farthing, straight off, so long as I was left in peace. Is the world to go to pot, or am I to go without my tea? I say that the world may go to pot for me so long as I always get my tea. Did you know that, or not? Well, anyway, I know that I am a blackguard, a scoundrel, an egoist, a sluggard.”

“The only gain of civilisation for mankind is the greater capacity for variety of sensations - and absolutely nothing more.”