Fyodor Dostoevsky Thinking Quotations

Everybody wants to change the world, but nobody thinks about changing himself.

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

When I look back at the past and think of all the time I squandered in error and idleness,... then my heart bleeds. Life is a gift... every minute could have been an eternity of happiness! If only youth knew! Now my life will change; now I will be reborn.

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

Where is it I've read that someone condemned to death says or thinks, an hour before his death, that if he had to live on some high rock, on such a narrow ledge that he'd only room to stand, and the ocean, everlasting darkness, everlasting solitude, everlasting tempest around him, if he had to remain standing on a square yard of space all his life, a thousand years, eternity, it were better to live so than to die at once. Only to live, to live and live! Life, whatever it may be!

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

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.

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

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.

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

People talk sometimes of a bestial cruelty, but that's a great injustice and insult to the beasts; a beast can never be so cruel as a man, so artistically cruel. The tiger only tears and gnaws, that's all he can do. He would never think of nailing people by the ears, even if he were able to do it.

My sweetheart! When I think of you, it's as if I'm holding some healing balm to my sick soul, and although i suffer for you, i find that even suffering for you is easy.

I utter what you would not dare think

...a condemned man who, at the hour of death, says or thinks that if the alternative were offered him of existing somewhere, on a height of rock or some narrow elevation, where only his two feet could stand, and round about him the ocean, perpetual gloom, perpetual solitude, perpetual storm, to remain there standing on a yard of surface for a lifetime, a thousand years, eternity! - rather would he live thus than die at once? Only live, live, live! - no matter how, only live!

I am a sick man...I am a spiteful man. I am an unattractive man. I think my liver is diseased. Then again, I don't know a thing about my illness; I'm not even sure what hurts.

I sometimes think love consists precisely of the voluntary gift by the loved object of the right to tyrannize over it.

Just take a look around you: Blood is flowing in rivers and in such a jolly way you’d think it was champagne.

To think too much is a disease.

We're always thinking of eternity as an idea that cannot be understood, something immense. But why must it be? What if, instead of all this, you suddenly find just a little room there, something like a village bath-house, grimy, and spiders in every corner, and that's all eternity is. Sometimes, you know, I can't help feeling that that's what it is.

Do you think it is a vain hope that one day man will find joy in noble deeds of light and mercy, rather than in the coarse pleasures he indulges in today -- gluttony, fornication, ostentation, boasting, and envious vying with his neighbor? I am certain this is not a vain hope and that the day will come soon.

I think everyone must love life more than anything else in the world.' 'Love life more than the meaning of it?' 'Yes, certainly. Love it regardless of logic, as you say. Yes, most certainly regardless of logic, for only then will I grasp its meaning. That's what I've been vaguely aware of for a long time. Half your work is done, Ivan: you love life. Now you must try to do the second half and you are saved.

Don't think I'm talking nonsense because I'm drunk. I'm not a bit drunk. Brandy's all very well, but I need two bottles to make me drunk.

I think that if one is faced by inevitable destruction -- if a house is falling upon you, for instance -- one must feel a great longing to sit down, close one's eyes and wait, come what may . . .

I am a sick man...I am a wicked man. An unattractive man. I think my liver hurts. However, i don't know a fig about my sickness, and am not sure what it is that hurts me. I am not being treated and never have been, though I respect medicine. What's more, I am also superstitious in the extreme; well, at least enough to respect medicine.