“The darker the night, the brighter the stars, The deeper the grief, the closer is God!”
Work
Determined to overreach his humanity and assert his untrammelled individual will, Raskolnikov, and impoverished student living in the St. Petersburg of the Tsars, commits an act of murder and theft and sets into motion a story which, for its excruciating suspense, its atmospheric vividness, and its profundity of characterization and vision, is almost unequaled in the literatures of the world. The best known of Dostoevsky's masterpieces, Crime And Punishment can bear any amount of rereading without losing a drop of its power over our imagination.
Quotes
Showing 1-14 of 14
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Canonical work source
“The darker the night, the brighter the stars, The deeper the grief, the closer is God!”
“Pain and suffering are always inevitable for a large intelligence and a deep heart. The really great men must, I think, have great sadness on earth.”
“Where is it I've read that someone condemned to death says or thinks, an hour before his death, that if he had to live on some high rock, on such a narrow ledge that he'd only room to stand,...”
“What if man is not really a scoundrel, man in general, I mean, the whole race of mankind-then all the rest is prejudice, simply artificial terrors and there are no barriers and it's all as i...”
“It is man's unique privilege, among all other organisms. By pursuing falsehood you will arrive at the truth!”
“He was one of the numerous and varied legion of dullards, of half-animated abortions, conceited, half-educated coxcombs, who attach themselves to the idea most in fashion only to vulgarize i...”
“No, it is not a commonplace, sir! If up to now, for example, I have been told to 'love my neighbor,' and I did love him, what came of it?. . . What came of it was that I tore my caftan in tw...”
“To go wrong in one's own way is better than to go right in someone else's.”
“The servants used to say, 'he read himself silly.”
“The fear of appearances is the first symptom of impotence.”
“Intelligence alone is not nearly enough when it comes to acting wisely.”
“Life had stepped into the place of theory and something quite different would work itself out in his mind.”
“…everyone needs a somewhere, a place he can go. There comes a time, you see, inevitably there comes a time you have to have a somewhere you can go!”
“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?”