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Fyodor Dostoevsky Inspirational Quotes (364)

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Every decent man of our age must be a coward and a slave. That is his normal condition. Of that I am firmly persuaded. He is made and constructed to that very end. And not only at the present time owing to some casual circumstance, but always, at all times, a decent man is bound to be a coward and a slave.
Fyodor Dostoevsky
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Man has it all in his hands, and it all slips through his fingers from sheer cowardice.
Fyodor Dostoevsky
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if she had ordered me to throw myself down then, I would have done it! If she had said it only as a joke, said it with contempt, spitting on me--even then I would have jumped!
Fyodor Dostoevsky
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Since man cannot live without miracles, he will provide himself with miracles of his own making. He will believe in witchcraft and sorcery, even though he may otherwise be a heretic, an atheist, and a rebel.
Fyodor Dostoevsky
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He who desires to see the living God face-to-face should not seek him in the empty, firmament of his mind, but in human love.
Fyodor Dostoevsky
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To kill someone for committing murder is a punishment incomparably worse than the crime itself. Murder by legal sentence is immeasurably more terrible than murder by brigands.
Fyodor Dostoevsky
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Every member of the society spies on the rest, and it is his duty to inform against them. All are slaves and equal in their slavery... The great thing about it is equality... Slaves are bound to be equal.
Fyodor Dostoevsky
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I want to suffer so that I may love.
Fyodor Dostoevsky
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Everything seems stupid when it fails.
Fyodor Dostoevsky
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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.
Fyodor Dostoevsky
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To study the meaning of man and of life — I am making significant progress here. I have faith in myself. Man is a mystery: if you spend your entire life trying to puzzle it out, then do not say that you have wasted your time. I occupy myself with this mystery, because I want to be a man.
Fyodor Dostoevsky
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It was a marvelous night, the sort of night one only experiences when one is young. The sky was so bright, and there were so many stars that, gazing upward, one couldn't help wondering how so many whimsical, wicked people could live under such a sky.
Fyodor Dostoevsky
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What would life be if we had no courage to attempt anything? Taking a new step, uttering a new word, is what people fear most.
Fyodor Dostoevsky
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Nothing could be more absurd than moral lessons at such a moment! Oh, self-satisfied people: with what proud self-satisfaction such babblers are ready to utter their pronouncements! If they only knew to what degree I myself understand all the loathsomeness of my present condition, they wouldn't have the heart to teach me.
Fyodor Dostoevsky
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Be not forgetful of prayer. Every time you pray, if your prayer is sincere, there will be new feeling and new meaning in it, which will give you fresh courage, and you will understand that prayer is an education.
Fyodor Dostoevsky
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Beggars, especially noble beggars, should never show themselves in the street they should ask for alms through the newspapers. It's still possible to love one's neighbor abstractly, and even occasionally from a distance, but hardly ever up close.
Fyodor Dostoevsky
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Life had stepped into the place of theory.
Fyodor Dostoevsky
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Nothing is more seductive for a man than his freedom of conscience, but nothing is a greater cause of suffering.
Fyodor Dostoevsky
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The chief thing is to love others like yourself, that's the chief thing, and that's everything nothing else is wanted - you will find out at once how to arrange it all.
Fyodor Dostoevsky
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Granted I am a babbler, a harmless vexatious babbler, like all of us. But what is to be done if the direct and sole vocation of every intelligent man is babble, that is, the intentional pouring of water through a sieve?
Fyodor Dostoevsky
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The man who has a conscience suffers whilst acknowledging his sin. That is his punishment.
Fyodor Dostoevsky
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--you wouldn't have hurt me like this for nothing. So what have I done? How have I wronged you? Tell me.
Fyodor Dostoevsky
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I have been tortured with longing to believe ... and the yearning grows stronger the more cogent the intellectual difficulties stand in the way.
Fyodor Dostoevsky
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People talk sometimes of a bestial cruelty, but that's a great injustice and insult to the beasts a beast can never be so cruel as a man, so artistically cruel. The tiger only tears and gnaws, that's all he can do. He would never think of nailing people by the ears, even if he were able to do it.
Fyodor Dostoevsky
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