Quote

Beauty is a terrible and awful thing! It is terrible because it has not been fathomed, for God sets us nothing but riddles. Here the boundaries meet and all contradictions exist side by side.

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
Beauty
Sets
Beautiful
Boundaries
Nothing
Awful
Thing
Exist
Fathomed
Meet
Riddles
Terrible
Riddle
Side
Contradictions
Sides
Contradiction

More quotes by Fyodor Dostoevsky

Image
Suffering is the sole origin of consciousness.
Fyodor Dostoevsky
Image
In every idea of genius or in every new human idea, or, more simply still, in every serious human idea born in anyone's brain, there is something that cannot possibly be conveyed to others.
Fyodor Dostoevsky
Image
Life is in ourselves and not in the external.
Fyodor Dostoevsky
Image
Man, do not pride yourself on your superiority to the animals, for they are without sin, while you, with all your greatness, you defile the earth wherever you appear and leave an ignoble trail behind you -- and that is true, alas, for almost every one of us!
Fyodor Dostoevsky
Image
Love is a teacher, but one must know how to acquire it, for it is difficult to acquire, it is dearly bought, by long work over a long time, for one ought to love not for a chance moment but for all time. Anyone, even a wicked man, can love by chance.
Fyodor Dostoevsky
Image
One could never judge a man without seeing him close, for oneself.
Fyodor Dostoevsky
Image
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
Image
My life is ending, I know that well, but every day that is left me I feel how my earthly life is in touch with a new infinite, unknown, but approaching life, the nearness of which sets my soul quivering with rapture, my mind glowing and my heart weeping with joy.
Fyodor Dostoevsky
Image
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
Image
I will not and cannot believe that evil is the normal condition of mankind.
Fyodor Dostoevsky
Image
My God, but what do I care about the laws of nature and arithmatic if for some reason these laws and two times two is four are not to my liking?
Fyodor Dostoevsky
Image
Can a man possessing conciousness ever really respect himself?
Fyodor Dostoevsky
Image
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
Image
Let us be servants in order to be leaders.
Fyodor Dostoevsky
Image
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
Image
A society should be judged not by how it treats its outstanding citizens but by how it treats its criminals.
Fyodor Dostoevsky
Image
The consciousness of life is higher than life.
Fyodor Dostoevsky
Image
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.
Fyodor Dostoevsky
Image
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
Image
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.
Fyodor Dostoevsky