Fyodor Dostoyevsky or Dostoevsky was a Russian writer of novels, short stories and essays.
Deprived of meaningful work, men and women lose their reason for existence; they go stark, raving mad.
Sarcasm: the last refuge of modest and chaste-souled people when the privacy of their soul is coarsely and intrusively invaded.
Beauty is mysterious as well as terrible. God and devil are fighting there, and the battlefield is the heart of man.
The greatest happiness is to know the source of unhappiness.
A real gentleman, even if he loses everything he owns, must show no emotion. Money must be so far beneath a gentleman that it is hardly worth troubling about.
Happiness does not lie in happiness, but in the achievement of it.
Power is given only to those who dare to lower themselves and pick it up. Only one thing matters, one thing; to be able to dare!
If there is no God, everything is permitted.
We sometimes encounter people, even perfect strangers, who begin to interest us at first sight, somehow suddenly, all at once, before a word has been spoken.
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.
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.
It seems, in fact, as though the second half of a man's life is made up of nothing, but the habits he has accumulated during the first half.
Much unhappiness has come into the world because of bewilderment and things left unsaid.
To love someone means to see him as God intended him.
The cleverest of all, in my opinion, is the man who calls himself a fool at least once a month.
It is not possible to eat me without insisting that I sing praises of my devourer?
The soul is healed by being with children.
Man only likes to count his troubles, but he does not count his joys.
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.
There is no subject so old that something new cannot be said about it.
Men do not accept their prophets and slay them, but they love their martyrs and worship those whom they have tortured to death.
If you were to destroy the belief in immortality in mankind, not only love but every living force on which the continuation of all life in the world depended, would dry up at once.
Man, so long as he remains free, has no more constant and agonizing anxiety than find as quickly as possible someone to worship.
Realists do not fear the results of their study.
The formula 'Two and two make five' is not without its attractions.
Love a man, even in his sin, for that love is a likeness of the divine love, and is the summit of love on earth.
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.
The secret of man's being is not only to live but to have something to live for.
What is hell? I maintain that it is the suffering of being unable to love.
The darker the night, the brighter the stars, the deeper the grief, the closer is God!
Right or wrong, it's very pleasant to break something from time to time.
Man is sometimes extraordinarily, passionately, in love with suffering...
Nothing in this world is harder than speaking the truth, nothing easier than flattery.
It is not the brains that matter most, but that which guides them — the character, the heart, generous qualities, progressive ideas.
My God, a moment of bliss. Why, isn't that enough for a whole lifetime?
When reason fails, the devil helps!
