The quotations of

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Russian novelist

1821–1881

55 quotes, most often on Love, Truth & Lies and God.

If you were to destroy in mankind the belief in immortality, not only love but every living force maintaining the life of the world would at once be dried up. Moreover, nothing then would be immoral, everything would be lawful, even cannibalism.
The Brothers Karamazov (1880), Book II: An Unfortunate Gathering, Chapter VIIn context
- Morality
- Religion
But being in love doesn’t mean loving. You may be in love with a woman and yet hate her.
The Brothers Karamazov (1880), Book III: The Sensualists, Chapter IIIIn context
- Love
The awful thing is that beauty is mysterious as well as terrible. God and the devil are fighting there and the battlefield is the heart of man.
The Brothers Karamazov (1880), Book III: The Sensualists, Chapter IIIIn context
- Beauty
- Good & Evil
People talk sometimes of 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 Brothers Karamazov (1880), Book V: Pro and Contra, Chapter IVIn context
- Animals
- Good & Evil
I think if the devil doesn’t exist, but man has created him, he has created him in his own image and likeness.
The Brothers Karamazov (1880), Book V: Pro and Contra, Chapter IVIn context
- God
- Good & Evil
It’s not God that I don’t accept, Alyosha, only I most respectfully return Him the ticket.
The Brothers Karamazov (1880), Book V: Pro and Contra, Chapter IVIn context
- Anti-God
- God
Love all God’s creation, the whole 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.
The Brothers Karamazov (1880), Book VI: The Russian Monk, Chapter IIIIn context
Love children especially, for they too are sinless like the angels; they live to soften and purify our hearts and as it were to guide us.
The Brothers Karamazov (1880), Book VI: The Russian Monk, Chapter IIIIn context
- Children
- Love
Every man has reminiscences which he would not tell to everyone, but only to his friends. He has other matters in his mind which he would not reveal even to his friends, but only to himself, and that in secret. But there are other things which a man is afraid to tell even to himself
Notes from Underground (1864), Part I: Underground, Chapter XIIn context
- Friendship
- Truth & Lies
A fool with a heart and no brains is just as unhappy as a fool with brains and no heart.
The Idiot (1869), Part I, Chapter VIIIn context
- Happiness
- Intelligence
I am a sick man…. I am a spiteful man. I am an unattractive man.
Notes from Underground (1864), Part I: Underground, Chapter IIn context
- Character
- Health
The more cunning a man is, the less he suspects that he will be caught in a simple thing. The more cunning a man is, the simpler the trap he must be caught in.
Crime and Punishment (1867), Part III, Chapter VIIn context
- Intelligence
The stupider one is, the closer one is to reality. The stupider one is, the clearer one is. Stupidity is brief and artless, while intelligence wriggles and hides itself. Intelligence is a knave, but stupidity is honest and straightforward.
The Brothers Karamazov (1880), Book V: Pro and Contra, Chapter IIIIn context
- Intelligence
It’s the great mystery of human life that old grief passes gradually into quiet, tender joy.
The Brothers Karamazov (1880), Book VI: The Russian Monk, Chapter IIn context
- Emotion
It is better to be unhappy and know the worst, than to be happy in a fool’s paradise!
The Idiot (1869), Part IV, Chapter VIn context
- Happiness
- Truth & Lies

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