Fyodor Dostoevsky Quotes

Fyodor Dostoevsky Short Biography


Fyodor Mikhaylovich Dostoyevsky (November 11, 1821 – February 9, 1881) was a Russian writer of novels, short stories and essays. He is best known for his novels Crime and Punishment, The Idiot and The Brothers Karamazov.
Dostoyevsky's literary works explored human psychology in the troubled political, social and spiritual context of 19th-century Russian society. Considered by many as a founder or precursor of 20th-century existentialism, Dostoyevsky wrote, with the embittered voice of the anonymous "underground man", Notes from Underground (1864), which was called the "best overture for existentialism ever written" by Walter Kaufmann. Dostoyevsky is often acknowledged by critics as one of the greatest and most prominent psychologists in world literature.


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.
Fyodor Dostoevsky

Beauty is mysterious as well as terrible. God and devil are fighting there, and the battlefield is the heart of man.
Fyodor Dostoevsky

Deprived of meaningful work, men and women lose their reason for existence; they go stark, raving mad.
Fyodor Dostoevsky

Happiness does not lie in happiness, but in the achievement of it.
Fyodor Dostoevsky

If there is no God, everything is permitted.
Fyodor Dostoevsky

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.
Fyodor Dostoevsky

It is not possible to eat me without insisting that I sing praises of my devourer?
Fyodor Dostoevsky

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.
Fyodor Dostoevsky

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.
Fyodor Dostoevsky

Man only likes to count his troubles, but he does not count his joys.
Fyodor Dostoevsky

Man, so long as he remains free, has no more constant and agonizing anxiety than find as quickly as possible someone to worship.
Fyodor Dostoevsky

Men do not accept their prophets and slay them, but they love their martyrs and worship those whom they have tortured to death.
Fyodor Dostoevsky

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

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.
Fyodor Dostoevsky

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!
Fyodor Dostoevsky

Realists do not fear the results of their study.
Fyodor Dostoevsky

Sarcasm: the last refuge of modest and chaste-souled people when the privacy of their soul is coarsely and intrusively invaded.
Fyodor Dostoevsky

The cleverest of all, in my opinion, is the man who calls himself a fool at least once a month.
Fyodor Dostoevsky

The formula 'Two and two make five' is not without its attractions.
Fyodor Dostoevsky

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