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To crush, to annihilate a man utterly, to inflict on him the most terrible of punishments so that the most ferocious murderer would shudder at it and dread it beforehand, one need only give him work of an absolutely, completely useless and irrational character.

Fyodor Dostoevsky

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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
Would
Completely
Murderer
Men
Terrible
Irrational
Character
Utterly
Annihilate
Give
Dread
Ferocious
Need
Crush
Punishments
Giving
Punishment
Shudder
Needs
Useless
Beforehand
Work
Absolutely
Inflict

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Let it not be a beautiful face,' I thought, 'but to make up for that, let it be a noble, an expressive, and, above all, an extremely intelligent one.
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Let us not forget that the reasons for human actions are usually incalculably more complex and diverse than we tend to explain them later, and are seldom clearly manifest.
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Of course boredom may lead you to anything. It is boredom sets one sticking golden pins into people, but all that would not matter. What is bad (this is my comment again) is that I dare say people will be thankful for the gold pins then.
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...chance may do anything.
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Every man needs a place to go to.
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When reason fails, the devil helps!
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I do not wish you much happiness--it would bore you I do not wish you trouble either but, following the people's philosophy, I will simply repeat: 'Live more' and try somehow not to be too bored this useless wish I am adding on my own.
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And you're sorry that the ephemeral beauty has faded so rapidly, so irretrievably, that it flashed so deceptively and pointlessly before your eyes - you're sorry, for you didn't even have time to fall in love.
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The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons.
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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.
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It suddenly seemed to me that I was lonely, that every one was forsaking me and going away from me. Of course, any one is entitled to ask who every one was. For though I had been living almost eight years in Petersburg I had hardly an acquaintance. But what did I want with acquaintances? I was acquainted with all Petersburg as it was.
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But man is so addicted to systems and to abstract conclusions that he is prepared deliberately to distort the truth, to close his eyes and ears, but justify his logic at all cost.
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To strive consciously for an object and to engage in engineering -- that is, incessantly and eternally to make new roads, wherever they may lead.
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What matters, said the prince at last, is that you have a child's trusting nature and extraordinary truthfulness. Do you know that a great deal can be forgiven you for that alone?
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Yes, that's right... love should come before logic ... Only then will man come to understand the meaning of life.
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I don’t even know what I’m writing, I have no idea, I don’t know anything, and I’m not reading over it, and I’m not correcting my style, and I’m writing just for the sake of writing, just for the sake of writing more to you… My precious, my darling, my dearest!
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Times of crisis, of disruption or constructive change, are not only predictable, but desirable. They mean growth. Taking a new step, uttering a new word, is what people fear most.
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In abstract love of humanity one almost always only loves oneself.
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One could never judge a man without seeing him close, for oneself.
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Dreams seem to be spurred on not by reason but by desire, not by the head but by the heart, and yet what complicated tricks my reason has played sometimes in dreams.
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