Fyodor Dostoevsky Quotes

In this post, we are going to see Fyodor Dostoevsky Quotes who was a great writer and novelist of Russia. whose works influenced great writers such as Friedrich Nietzsche and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.

Despite being a military engineer by profession, he had an outstanding writing ability.

Dostoevsky full name is Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky. He was born on November 11, 1821, in Moscow. His father’s name is Dr. Mikhail Dostoevsky and his mother’s name is Maria Dostoevskaya.

Dostoevsky was an introvert and over-excitable romantic by nature since childhood.

His parents had introduced him to literature since childhood. He started reading much literature like heroic sagas and Bible from the age of just 3 years. But the novelist Nikolai Gogol had the most influence on him.

His mother died when he was 15 years old. After a few days, he left school and joined Nikolayev Military Engineering Institute.

Young Fyodor Dostoevsky
Young Fyodor Dostoevsky (Around 1847) (Image From Wikipedia)

After graduation, he worked as an engineer and started living a pleasant lifestyle and also used to translate books for extra income.

In the mid-1840s Dostoevsky wrote his first novel, Poor Folk, and it helped him join Saint Petersburg’s literary circles.

In 1849, due to the connection of this literary group, he had arrested and live in a Siberian prison camp for 4 years and give compulsory military service for 6 years.

After the sentence, he worked as a journalist and published non-fiction and fictional writings under the name A Writer’s Diary. After that, he travelled to Western Europe and there he develops a gambling addiction.

Due to gambling, he suffered a lot financially and even begged for money.

But after some time Dostoevsky published many famous novels like Crime and Punishment, The Idiot, Demons, and The Brothers Karamazov. Due to which all their financial problems ended. 

He became the most widely read Russian writer. He published about 12 novels, 16 short stories and some other works during his lifetime.

The writings of Fyodor Dostoevsky have also had a great influence on later great writers and philosophers like Friedrich Nietzsche, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and Anton Chekhov.

From this, we can guess how great his work and writing will be.

Dostoevsky's grave
Dostoevsky’s grave (Image From Wikipedia)

His work has been praised by many highly influential masterpieces. He is also considered to be one of the greatest novelists in the literature world.

Dostoevsky’s books have been translated into more than 170 languages and have been featured in some films.

This great novelist and writer died on 9 February 1881 at the age of 59 due to a pulmonary haemorrhage in Russian’s Saint Petersburg city. And he was buried near his favourite poets Nikolay Karamzin and Vasily Zhukovsky.

Fyodor Dostoevsky Quotes :

Fyodor Dostoevsky Quotes
There is nothing in the world more difficult than candour, and nothing easier than flattery. – Fyodor Dostoevsky Quotes

I don’t know how to be silent when my heart is speaking. – Dostoevsky

The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him and loses all respect for himself and for others. – Dostoevsky

It’s very pleasant to break something from time to time. – Dostoevsky

Stupidity is brief and artless, while intelligence squirms and hides itself. Intelligence is unprincipled, but stupidity is honest and straightforward. – Dostoevsky

Fyodor Dostoevsky Quotes
To go wrong in one’s own way is better than to go right in someone else’s. – Fyodor Dostoevsky Quotes

Your worst sin is that you have destroyed and betrayed yourself for nothing. – Dostoevsky

Life is paradise, and we are all in paradise, but we refuse to see it. – Dostoevsky

There is nothing higher and stronger and more wholesome and good for life in the future than some good memory, especially a memory of childhood, of home. – Dostoevsky

To think too much is a disease. – Dostoevsky

dostoevsky quotes
The man who lies to himself can be more easily offended than anyone else. – Fyodor Dostoevsky Quotes

The darker the night, the brighter the stars. – Dostoevsky

The mystery of human existence lies not in just staying alive, but in finding something to live for. – Dostoevsky

Lying to ourselves is more deeply ingrained than lying to others. – Dostoevsky

A fool with a heart and no sense is just as unhappy as a fool with sense and no heart. – Dostoevsky

dostoevsky quotes
The fear of appearances is the first symptom of impotence. – Fyodor Dostoevsky Quotes

Truly great men must experience great sorrow on the earth. – Dostoevsky

Every time you pray, if your prayer is sincere, there will be new feelings and new meaning in it. That will give you fresh courage, and you will understand that prayer is an education. – Dostoevsky

It is better to be unhappy and know the worst than to be happy in a fool’s paradise. – Dostoevsky

Don’t be overwise; fling yourself straight into life, without deliberation; don’t be afraid – the flood will bear you to the bank and set you safe on your feet again. – Dostoevsky

dostoevsky sayings
A hundred suspicions don’t make proof. – Fyodor Dostoevsky Quotes

The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons. – Dostoevsky

It is not the brains that matter most, but that which guides them — the character, the heart, generous qualities, progressive ideas. – Dostoevsky

Nothing in this world is harder than speaking the truth, nothing easier than flattery. – Dostoevsky

Power is given only to him who dares to stoop and take it … one must have the courage to dare. – Dostoevsky

dostoevsky sayings
Don’t hesitate to satisfy your needs; indeed, expand your needs and demand more. – Dostoevsky

Compassion is the chief law of human existence. – Dostoevsky

One can’t understand everything at once, we can’t begin with perfection all at once! In order to reach perfection one must begin by being ignorant of a great deal. – Dostoevsky

You will burn and you will burn out; you will be healed and come back again. – Dostoevsky

Nothing is easier than to denounce the evildoer; nothing is more difficult than to understand him. – Dostoevsky

People with new ideas, people with the faintest capacity for saying something new, are extremely few in number, extraordinarily so, in fact. – Dostoevsky

best dostoevsky quotes
The more stupid one is, the closer one is to reality. The more stupid one is, the clearer one is. – Fyodor Dostoevsky Quotes

Talking nonsense is the sole privilege mankind possesses over other organisms. – Dostoevsky

I can see the sun, but even if I cannot see the sun, I know that it exists. And to know that the sun is there – that is living. – Dostoevsky

Taking a new step, uttering a new word, is what people fear most. – Dostoevsky

Nothing has ever been more insupportable for a man and a human society than freedom. – Dostoevsky

It takes something more than intelligence to act intelligently. – Dostoevsky

Dostoevsky Quotes About Love :

Dostoevsky Quotes About Love
To love someone means to see them as God intended them. – Fyodor Dostoevsky Quotes

What is hell? The suffering of being unable to love. – Dostoevsky

Love is such a priceless treasure that you can buy the whole world with it, and redeem not only your own but other people’s sins. – Dostoevsky

Love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing compared to love in dreams. – Dostoevsky

Dostoevsky Quotes on God :

Dostoevsky Quotes on God
Without God, all things are permitted. – Fyodor Dostoevsky Quotes

The deeper the grief, the closer is God! – Dostoevsky

Existentialism isn’t so atheistic that it wears itself out showing that God doesn’t exist. Rather, it declares that even if God did exist, that would change nothing. – Dostoevsky

God and the devil are fighting there and the battlefield is the heart of man. – Dostoevsky

Dostoevsky Demons Quotes :

Dostoevsky Demons Quotes
A beast can never be as cruel as a human being. – Fyodor Dostoevsky Quotes

People speak sometimes about the “bestial” cruelty of man, but that is terribly unjust and offensive to beasts, no animal could ever be so cruel as a man. – Dostoevsky

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

Dostoevsky Quotes On Pain And Suffering :

Dostoevsky Quotes On Pain And Suffering
Pain and suffering are always inevitable for a large intelligence and a deep heart. – Fyodor Dostoevsky Quotes

The really great men must have great sadness on earth. – Dostoevsky

It’s the great mystery of human life that old grief passes gradually into quiet tender joy. – Dostoevsky

Dostoevsky Quotes About Happiness :

The greatest happiness is to know the source of unhappiness. – Dostoevsky

Much unhappiness has come into the world because of bewilderment and things left unsaid. – Dostoevsky

Man only likes to count his troubles; he doesn’t calculate his happiness. – Dostoevsky