Quote

I tell you solemnly, that I have many times tried to become an insect. But I was not equal even to that. I swear, gentlemen, that to be too conscious is an illness — a real thorough-going illness.

Fyodor Dostoevsky

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Fyodor Dostoevsky
Age: 60 †
Born: 1821
Born: January 1
Died: 1881
Died: January 1
Biographer
Essayist
Journalist
Novelist
Opinion Journalist
Philosopher
Poet
Short Story Writer
Translator
Writer
Dostoievski
Fyodor Dostoievski
Fyodor Mikhaylovich Dostoievski
Fyodor Mikhaylovich Dostoyevsky
Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky
Many
Gentleman
Real
Illness
Even
Tried
Solemnly
Going
Conscious
Insect
Equal
Gentlemen
Times
Thorough
Tell
Insects
Become
Swear

More quotes by Fyodor Dostoevsky

Image
Taking a new step. . .is what people fear most.
Fyodor Dostoevsky
Image
you don't need free will to determine that twice two is four. that's not what i call free will
Fyodor Dostoevsky
Image
The formula 'Two and two make five' is not without its attractions.
Fyodor Dostoevsky
Image
Hang your merit. I don't seek anyone's approbation.
Fyodor Dostoevsky
Image
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
Image
Faith does not, in the realist, spring from the miracle but the miracle from faith. If the realist once believes, then he is bound by his very realism to admit the miraculous also.
Fyodor Dostoevsky
Image
One must love life before loving its meaning ... yes, and when the love of life disappears, no meaning can console us.
Fyodor Dostoevsky
Image
Drowning men, it is said, cling to wisps of straw.
Fyodor Dostoevsky
Image
I am too young and I've loved you too much.
Fyodor Dostoevsky
Image
Remember that you must never sell your soul. Never accept payment in advance.... Never give a work to the printer before it is finished. This is the worst thing you can do.... It constitutes the murder of your own ideas.
Fyodor Dostoevsky
Image
This is my last message to you: in sorrow, seek happiness.
Fyodor Dostoevsky
Image
It is not as a child that I believe and confess Jesus Christ. My hosanna is born of a furnace of doubt.
Fyodor Dostoevsky
Image
Gambling is a most foolish and imprudent pursuit.
Fyodor Dostoevsky
Image
And what's strange, what would be marvelous, is not that God should really exist the marvel is that such an idea, the idea of the necessity of God, could enter the head of such a savage, vicious beast as man.
Fyodor Dostoevsky
Image
You’re a gentleman,” they used to say to him. “You shouldn’t have gone murdering people with a hatchet that’s no occupation for a gentleman.
Fyodor Dostoevsky
Image
A fool with a heart and no sense is just as unhappy as a fool with sense and no heart.
Fyodor Dostoevsky
Image
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
Image
I have in my own life merely carried to the extreme that which you have never ventured to carry even halfway and what's more, you've regarded your cowardice as prudence, and found comfort in deceiving yourselves. So that, in fact, I may be even more alive than you are. Do take a closer look!
Fyodor Dostoevsky
Image
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
Image
The best way to keep a prisoner from escaping is to make sure he never knows he's in prison.
Fyodor Dostoevsky