Fyodor Dostoyevsky

“Man is a pliant animal, a being who gets accustomed to anything.”

“Suffering is the sole origin of consciousness.”

“Man is fond of counting his troubles, but he does not count his joys. If he counted them up as he ought to, he would see that every lot has enough happiness provided for it.”

“We are all happy, if we only knew it.”

“I admit that twice two makes four is an excellent thing, but if we are to give everything its due, twice two makes five is sometimes a very charming thing too.”

“Who doesn't desire his father's death?”

“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.”

“Originality and the feeling of one's own dignity are achieved only through work and struggle.”

“To love someone means to see them as God intended them.”

“You see I kept asking myself then: why am I so stupid that if others are stupid—and I know they are—yet I won't be wiser?”

“But I always liked side-paths, little dark back-alleys behind the main road- there one finds adventures and surprises, and precious metal in the dirt.”

“Brother, I’m not depressed and haven’t lost spirit. Life everywhere is life, life is in ourselves and not in the external. There will be people near me, and to be a human being among human b...”

“Men are made for happiness, and he who is completely happy has the right to say to himself, 'I am doing God's will on earth.”

“For everyone now strives most of all to seperate his person, wishing to experience the fullness of life within himself, and yet what comes of all his efforts is not the fullness of life, but...”

“Love the animals: God has given them the rudiments of thought and joy untroubled.”

“It's God that's worrying me. That's the only thing that's worrying me. What if He doesn't exist? What if Rakitin's right -that it's an idea made up by men? Then, if He doesn't exist, man is...”

“(Ivan) Hold your tongue, or I'll kill you! (The devil) You'll kill me? No, excuse me, I will speak. I came to treat myself to that pleasure. Oh, I love the dreams of my ardent young friends,...”

“Even there, in the mines, underground, I may find a human heart in another convict and murderer by my side, and I may make friends with him, for even there one may live and love and suffer....”

“Life had stepped into the place of theory and something quite different would work itself out in his mind.”

“You took all that was most extraordinary, most hypothetical, and most vague, all that was beyond the understanding of the people, and thus You acted as though You did not love them at all—an...”