Fyodor Dostoevsky Men Quotations

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

Is the nature of men such, that they can reject miracle, and at the great moments of their life, the moments of their deepest, most agonising spiritual difficulties, cling only to the free verdict of the heart? Oh, Thou didst know that Thy deed would be recorded in books, would be handed down to remote times and the utmost ends of the earth, and Thou didst hope that man, following Thee, would cling to God and not ask for a miracle. But Thou didst not know that when man rejects miracle he rejects God too; for man seeks not so much God as the miraculous. And as man cannot bear to be without the miraculous, he will create new miracles of his own for himself, and will worship deeds of sorcery and witchcraft, though he might be a hundred times over a rebel, heretic and infidel.

I have no self-respect. But can a man of acute sensibility respect himself at all?

If you wish to glimpse inside a human soul and get to know a man ... just watch him laugh. If he laughs well, he's a good man.

The more I detest men individually the more ardent becomes my love for humanity.

Whoever has experienced the power and the unrestrained ability to humiliate another human being automatically loses his own sensations. Tyranny is a habit, it has its own organic life, it develops finally into a disease. The habit can kill and coarsen the very best man or woman to the level of a beast. Blood and power intoxicate ... the return of the human dignity, repentance and regeneration becomes almost impossible.

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

Perhaps I really regard myself as an intelligent man only because throughout my entire life I've never been able to start or finish anything.

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, so artfully, so artistically cruel.

The man who is happy is fulfilling the purpose of existence

Man has it all in his hands, and it all slips through his fingers from sheer cowardice.

I believe the best definition of man is the ungrateful biped.

To study the meaning of man and of life — I am making significant progress here. I have faith in myself. Man is a mystery: if you spend your entire life trying to puzzle it out, then do not say that you have wasted your time. I occupy myself with this mystery, because I want to be a man.

There is no sin , and there can be no sin on all the earth , which the Lord will not forgive to the truly repentant! Man cannot commit a sin so great as to exhaust the infinite love of God . Can there be a sin which could exceed the love of God?

The man who lies to himself can be more easily offended than anyone else. You know it is sometimes very pleasant to take offense, isn't it? A man may know that nobody has insulted him, but that he has invented the insult for himself, has lied and exaggerated to make it picturesque, has caught at a word and made a mountain out of a molehill--he knows that himself, yet he will be the first to take offense, and will revel in his resentment till he feels great pleasure in it.

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

Lack of originality, everywhere, all over the world, from time immemorial, has always been considered the foremost quality and the recommendation of the active, efficient and practical man.

Civilization has made man, if not always more bloodthirsty, at least more viciously, more horribly bloodthirsty.

The secret of man's being is not only to live but to have something to live for.

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

A single day is sufficient for a man to discover what happiness is.

Since man cannot live without miracles, he will provide himself with miracles of his own making. He will believe in witchcraft and sorcery, even though he may otherwise be a heretic, an atheist, and a rebel.

Believe to the end, even if all men went astray and you were left the only one faithful; bring your offering even then and praise God in your loneliness.

Nothing is more seductive for a man than his freedom of conscience, but nothing is a greater cause of suffering.

Every man looks out for himself, and he has the happiest life who manages to hoodwink himself best of all.

Man is bound to lie about himself

One man doesn't believe in god at all, while the other believes in him so thoroughly that he prays as he murders men!

Remember, too, every day, and whenever you can, repeat to yourself, Lord, have mercy on all who appear before Thee today. For every hour and every moment thousands of men leave life on this earth, and their souls appear before God. And how many of them depart in solitude, unknown, sad, dejected that no one mourns for them or even knows whether they have lived or not!

For the secret of man's being is not only to live but to have something to live for. Without a stable conception of the object of life, man would not consent to go on living, and would rather destroy himself than remain on earth, though he had bread in abundance.

Through error you come to the truth! I am a man because I err! You never reach any truth without making fourteen mistakes and very likely a hundred and fourteen.

It is precisely that requirement of shared worship that has been the principal source of suffering for individual man and the human race since the beginning of history. In their efforts to impose universal worship, men have unsheathed their swords and killed one another. They have invented gods and challenged each other: "Discard your gods and worship mine or I will destroy both your gods and you!"

God is necessary, and therefore must exist...But I know that he does not and cannot exist...Don't you understand that a man with these two thoughts cannot go on living?

Man has such a predilection for systems and abstract deductions that he is ready to distort the truth intentionally he is ready to deny the evidence of his senses only to justify his logic.

From harmony, from heavenly harmony, This universal frame began: From harmony to harmony Through all the compass of the notes it ran, The diapason closing full in Man.

If man has one good memory to go by, that may be enough to save him.

Man is a mystery. It needs to be unravelled, and if you spend your whole life unravelling it, don't say that you've wasted time. I am studying that mystery because I want to be a human being.

Man grows used to everything, the scoundrel!

The whole work of man really seems to consist in nothing but proving to himself every minute that he is a man and not a piano key.

Often a man endures for several years, submits and suffers the cruellest punishments, and then suddenly breaks out over some minute trifle, almost nothing at all.

Shower on him every blessing, drown him in a sea of happiness, give him economic prosperity such that he should have nothing else to do but sleep, eat cakes, and busy himself with the continuation of the species, and even then, out of sheer ingratitude, sheer spite, man would play you some nasty trick.

Anyone who can appease a man's conscience can take his freedom away from him.

To a commonplace man of limited intellect, for instance, nothing is simpler than to imagine himself an original character, and to revel in that belief without the slightest misgiving.

How many ideas have there been in the history of man which were unthinkable ten years before they appeared?

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

I may be mistaken but it seems to me that a man may be judged by his laugh, and that if at first encounter you like the laugh of a person completely unknown to you, you may say with assurance that he is good.

Sometimes a man is intensely, even passionately, attached to suffering — that is a fact.

Man is stupid, phenomenally stupid.

Money is coined liberty, and so it is ten times dearer to a man who is deprived of freedom. If money is jingling in his pocket, he is half consoled, even though he cannot spend it.

a man is no example for a woman. It’s a different thing.

It is a law of nature that every decent man on earth is bound to be a coward and a slave

I've long stopped worrying about who invented whom - God man or man God.

Listen, in dreams and especially in nightmares, from indigestion or anything, a man sees sometimes such artistic visions, such complex and real actuality, such events, even a whole world of events, woven into such a plot, with such unexpected details from the most exalted matters to the last button on a cuff, as I swear Leo Tolstoy has never invented.

If one wanted to crush and destroy a man entirely, to mete out to him the most terrible punishment, all one would have to do would be to make him do work that was completely and utterly devoid of usefulness and meaning.

Drowning men, it is said, cling to wisps of straw.

I am a ridiculous man. They call me a madman now. That would be a distinct rise in my social position were it not that they still regard me as being as ridiculous as ever.

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!

It's curious and ridiculous how much the gaze of a prudish and painfully chaste man touched by love can sometimes express and that precisely at a moment when the man would of course sooner be glad to fall through the earth than to express anything with a word or a look.

As soon as any one is near me, his personality disturbs my self-complacency and restricts my freedom. In twenty-four hours I begin to hate the best of men: one because he's too long over his dinner; another because he has a cold and keeps on blowing his nose. I become hostile to people the moment they come close to me. But it has always happened that the more I detest men individually the more ardent becomes my love for humanity.

How does it come about that what an intelligent man expresses is much stupider than what remains inside him?

Man is a pliable animal, a being who gets accustomed to everything!

But what can a decent man speak of with most pleasure? Answer: Of himself. Well, so I will talk about myself.

I am a sick man...I am a spiteful man. I am a most unpleasant man.

That's just the point: an honest and sensitive man opens his heart, and the man of business goes on eating - and then he eats you up.

The man who has a conscience suffers whilst acknowledging his sin. That is his punishment.

Yes, that's right... love should come before logic ... Only then will man come to understand the meaning of life.

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.

Man, do not pride yourself on your superiority to the animals, for they are without sin, while you, with all your greatness, you defile the earth wherever you appear and leave an ignoble trail behind you -- and that is true, alas, for almost every one of us!

Man is a creature that can get accustomed to anything, and I think that is the best definition of him.

Two times two will be four even without my will. Is that what you call man's free will?

Granted I am a babbler, a harmless vexatious babbler, like all of us. But what is to be done if the direct and sole vocation of every intelligent man is babble, that is, the intentional pouring of water through a sieve?

It's a burden to us even to be human beings-men with our own real body and blood; we are ashamed of it, we think it a disgrace and try to contrive to be some sort of impossible generalized man.

But man is a fickle and disreputable creature and perhaps, like a chess-player, is interested in the process of attaining his goal rather than the goal itself.

If you wish to glimpse inside a human soul and get to know a man, don't bother analyzing his ways of being silent, of talking, of weeping, of seeing how much he is moved by noble ideas; you will get better results if you just watch him laugh. If he laughs well, he's a good man.

But what are years, what are months!" he would exclaim. "Why count the days, when even one day is enough for man to know all happiness.

I've made a terrible confession to you, he concluded gloomily. Do appreciate it, gentlemen. And it's not enough, not enough to appreciate it, you must not just appreciate it, it should also be precious to you, and if not, if this, too, goes past your souls, then it means you really do not respect me, gentlemen. I tell you that, and I will die of shame at having confessed to such men as you.

Man is unhappy because he doesn't know he's happy. If anyone finds out he'll become happy at once.

When he has lost all hope, all object in life, man becomes a monster in his misery.

Men like to to count their troubles; few calculate their happiness.

He did not know that the new life would not be given him for nothing, that he would have to pay dearly for it, that it would cost him great striving, great suffering. But that is the beginning of a new story -- the story of the gradual renewal of a man, the story of his gradual regeneration, of his passing from one world into another, of his initiation into a new unknown life. That might be the subject of a new story, but our present story is ended.

The more I love humanity in general, the less I love man in particular.

Every man has some reminiscences which he would not tell to everyone, but only to his friends. He has others which he would not reveal even to his friends, but only to himself, and that in secret. But finally there are still others which a man is even afraid to tell himself, and every decent man has a considerable number of such things stored away. That is, one can even say that the more decent he is, the greater the number of such things in his mind.

Can a man possessing conciousness ever really respect himself?

For what is man without desires, without free will, and without the power of choice but a stop in an organ pipe?

In sinning, each man sins against all, and each man is at least partly guilt for another's sin. There is no isolated sin.

But men love abstract reasoning and neat systematization so much that they think nothing of distorting the truth, closing their eyes and ears to contrary evidence to preserve their logical constructions.

It is amazing what one ray of sunshine can do for a man!

I am a sick man...I am a spiteful man. An unattractive man. I think that my liver hurts.

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 it should be.

Now I'm living out my life in a corner, trying to console myself with the stupid, useless excuse that an intelligent man cannot turn himself into anything, that only a fool can make anything he wants out of himself.

Man is a creative animal, doomed to strive toward a goal, engaged in full-time engineering.

Men are made for happiness, and he who is completely happy has the right to say to himself, 'I am doing God's will on earth.

When . . . in the course of all these thousands of years has man ever acted in accordance with his own interests?

It is necessary that every man have at least somewhere to go. For there are times when one absolutely must go at least somewhere!

‎Honoured sir, poverty is not a vice, that's a true saying. Yet I know too that drunkeness is not a virtue, and that's even truer. But beggary, honoured sir, beggary is a vice. In poverty you may still retain your innate nobility of soul, but in beggary--never--no one. For beggary a man is not chased out of human society with a stick, he is swept out with a broom, so as to make it as humiliating as possible; and quite right, too, forasmuch as in beggary as I am ready to be the first to humiliate myself.