Fyodor Dostoevsky Quotes

“I think the devil doesn’t exist, but man has created him, he has created him in his own image and likeness.”

“If everything on Earth were rational, nothing would happen.”

“If you want to be respected by others the great thing is to respect yourself. Only by that, only by self-respect will you compel others to respect you.”

“Man only likes to count his troubles; he doesn’t calculate his happiness.”

“Much unhappiness has come into the world because of bewilderment and things left unsaid.”

“Nothing in this world is harder than speaking the truth, nothing easier than flattery.”

“One can know a man from his laugh, and if you like a man’s laugh before you know anything of him, you may confidently say that he is a good man.”

“Only one thing matters, one thing; to be able to dare!”

“People speak sometimes about the “b*stial” cruelty of man, but that is terribly unjust and offensive to beasts. No animal could ever be so cruel as a man, so artfully, so artistically cruel.”

“Right or wrong, it’s very pleasant to break something from time to time.”

“Taking a new step, uttering a new word, is what people fear most.”

“The cleverest of all, in my opinion, is the man who calls himself a fool at least once a month.”

“The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons.”

“The man who lies to himself can be more easily offended than anyone else.”

“The second half of a man’s life is made up of nothing but the habits he has acquired during the first half.”

“The soul is healed by being with children.”

“There are things which a man is afraid to tell even to himself, and every decent man has a number of such things stored away in his mind.”

“To be in love is not the same as loving. You can be in love with a woman and still hate her.”

“To kill someone for committing murder is a punishment incomparably worse than the crime itself. Murder by legal sentence is immeasurably more terrible than murder by brigands.”

“You can be sincere and still be stupid.”