Fyodor Dostoyevsky quotes - page 8

They had no temples, but they had a real living and uninterrupted sense of oneness with the whole of the universe. (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)
The characteristics of our romantics are to understand everything, to see everything and to see it often incomparably more clearly than our most realistic minds see it; to refuse to accept anyone or anything, but at the same time not to despise anything. View quote
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
I learnt the truth last November - on the third of November, to be precise - and I remember every instant since. View quote
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Love a man even in his sin, for that is the semblance of Divine Love and is the highest love on earth. Love all God's creation, the whole of it and every grain of sand in it. Love every leaf, every ray of God's light. Love the animals, love the plants, love everything. If you love everything, you will perceive the divine mystery in things. Once you have perceived it, you will begin to comprehend it better every day, and you will come at last to love the world with an all-embracing love. View quote
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
They pointed to the stars and told me something about them which I could not understand, but I am convinced that they were somehow in touch with the stars, not only in thought, but by some living channel. View quote
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
But their knowledge was higher and deeper than ours; for our science seeks to explain what life is, aspires to understand it in order to teach others how to love, while they without science knew how to live; and that I understood, but I could not understand their knowledge. View quote
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
How it could come to pass I do not know, but I remember it clearly. The dream embraced thousands of years and left in me only a sense of the whole. View quote
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Having disburdened his heart, the Inquisitor waits for some time to hear his prisoner speak in His turn. His silence weighs upon him. He has seen that his captive has been attentively listening to him all the time, with His eyes fixed penetratingly and softly on the face of his jailer, and evidently bent upon not replying to him. The old man longs to hear His voice, to hear Him reply; better words of bitterness and scorn than His silence. Suddenly He rises; slowly and silently approaching the Inquisitor, He bends towards him and softly kisses the bloodless, four-score and-ten-year-old lips. That is all the answer... View quote
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
A terrible commotion rages among them, the populace shouts and loudly weeps, when suddenly, before the cathedral door, appears the Cardinal Grand Inquisitor himself.... He pauses before the crowd and observes. He has seen all. He has witnessed the placing of the little coffin at His feet, the calling back to life. And now, his dark, grim face has grown still darker; his bushy grey eyebrows nearly meet, and his sunken eye flashes with sinister light. Slowly raising his finger, he commands his minions to arrest Him... View quote
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
He comes silently and unannounced; yet all--how strange--yea, all recognize Him, at once! The population rushes towards Him as if propelled by some irresistible force; it surrounds, throngs, and presses around, it follows Him.... Silently, and with a smile of boundless compassion upon His lips, He crosses the dense crowd, and moves softly on. View quote
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Destroy my desires, eradicate my ideals, show me something better, and I will follow you. (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)
Man is sometimes extraordinarily, passionately, in love with suffering . . . View quote
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Man is a creature that can get accustomed to anything, and I think that is the best definition of him. View quote
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Neither man nor nation can exist without a sublime idea. View quote
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
I will not and cannot believe that evil is the normal condition of mankind. View quote
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Man is tormented by no greater anxiety than to find someone quickly to whom he can hand over that great gift of freedom with which the ill-fated creature is born. View quote
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
It's in the homes of spiteful old widows that one finds such cleanliness. View quote
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
It seemed clear to me that life and the world somehow depended upon me now. I may almost say that the world now seemed created for me alone: if I shot myself the world would cease to be at least for me. I say nothing of its being likely that nothing will exist for anyone when I am gone, and that as soon as my consciousness is extinguished the whole world will vanish too and become void like a phantom, as a mere appurtenance of my consciousness, for possibly all this world and all these people are only me myself. View quote
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
I am strongly convinced that not only too much consciousness but even any consciousness at all is a sickness. View quote
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
If you are penitent, you love. And if you love you are of God. All things are atoned for, all things are saved by love. If I, a sinner even as you are, am tender with you and have pity on you, how much more will God have pity upon you. Love is such a priceless treasure that you can redeem the whole world by it, and cleanse not only your own sins but the sins of others. View quote
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
They wanted to speak, but could not tears stood in their eyes. They were both pale and thin but those sick pale faces were bright with the dawn of a new future, of a full resurrection into a new life. They were renewed by love the heart of each held infinite sources of life for the heart of the other. (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)
In most cases, people, even wicked people, are far more naive and simple-hearted than one generally assumes. And so are we. View quote
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
We all come out from Gogol's 'Overcoat'. View quote
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
But yet I am firmly persuaded that a great deal of consciousness, every sort of consciousness, in fact, is a disease. View quote
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
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. View quote
Fyodor Dostoyevsky