Quotes from Fyodor Dostoevsky

They won't let me ... I can't be ... good!

What do you think, would not one tiny crime be wiped out by thousands of good deeds?

The greatest happiness is to know the source of unhappiness.

Truly great men must, I think, experience great sorrow on the earth.

I cannot truly imagine a truly great person who hasn't suffered.

May you be for ever blessed for that moment of bliss and happiness which you gave to another lonely and grateful heart. Isn't such a moment sufficient for the whole of one's life?

This is my last message to you: in sorrow, seek happiness.

And, indeed, I will at this point ask an idle question on my own account: which is better — cheap happiness or exalted sufferings? Well, which is better?

Happiness lies not in happiness but only in the attempt to achieve it.

Pass us by, and forgive us our happiness

Inventors and geniuses have almost always been looked on as no better than fools at the beginning of their career, and very frequently at the end of it also.

...one may say anything about the history of the world - anything that might enter the most disordered imagination. The only thing one can't say is that it's rational.

It's in the homes of spiteful old widows that one finds such cleanliness.

I did not bow down to you, I bowed down to all the suffering of humanity.

I wanted to discuss the suffering of humanity in general, but perhaps we'd better confine ourselves to the sufferings of children.

What man wants is simply independent choice, whatever that independence may cost and wherever it may lead.

Times of crisis, of disruption or constructive change, are not only predictable, but desirable. They mean growth. Taking a new step, uttering a new word, is what people fear most.

Be the sun and all will see you.

When reason fails, the devil helps!

What does reason know? Reason only knows what it has succeeded in learning.

Power is only vouchsafed to the man who dares to stoop and pick it up. There is only one thing, one thing needful: one has only to dare!

There is no subject so old that something new cannot be said about it.

Above all, don't lie to yourself.

Only by self-respect will you compel others to respect you.