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“To be acutely conscious is a disease, a real, honest-to-goodness disease.”

Fyodor Dostoyevsky book Notes from Underground

...что слишком сознавать — это болезнь, настоящая, полная болезнь.
Part 1, Chapter 2 (page 9)
Notes from Underground (1864)

“Even there, in the mines, underground, I may find a human heart in another convict and murderer by my side, and I may make friends with him, for even there one may live and love and suffer. One may thaw and revive a frozen heart in that convict, one may wait upon him for years, and at last bring up from the dark depths a lofty soul, a feeling, suffering creature; one may bring forth an angel, create a hero! There are so many of them, hundreds of them, and we are to blame for them.”

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

The Brothers Karamazov (1879–1880)

“In most cases, people, even the most vicious, are much more naive and simple-minded than we assume them to be. And this is true of ourselves too.”

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

The Brothers Karamazov (1879–1880)

“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?”

Fyodor Dostoyevsky book Notes from Underground

Part 1, Chapter 5 (page 19)
Notes from Underground (1864)

“The sky was horribly dark, but one could distinctly see tattered clouds, and between them fathomless black patches. Suddenly I noticed in one of these patches a star, and began watching it intently. That was because that star had given me an idea: I decided to kill myself that night.”

Fyodor Dostoyevsky book The Dream of a Ridiculous Man

Source: The Dream of a Ridiculous Man (1877), I

“The more cunning a man is, the less he suspects that he will be caught in a simple thing. The more cunning a man is, the simpler the trap he must be caught in.”

Fyodor Dostoyevsky book Crime and Punishment

Crime and Punishment (1866)

“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…”

Fyodor Dostoyevsky book The Idiot

The Idiot (1868–9)

“It was evident that he revived by fits and starts. He would suddenly come to himself from actual delirium for a few minutes; he would remember and talk with complete consciousness, chiefly in disconnected phrases which he had perhaps thought out and learnt by heart in the long weary hours of his illness, in his bed, in sleepless solitude.”

Fyodor Dostoyevsky book The Idiot

The Idiot (1868–9)

“Paper, they say, does not blush, but I assure you it’s not true and that it’s blushing just as I am now, all over.”

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

The Brothers Karamazov (1879–1880)

“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.”

Fyodor Dostoyevsky book The Idiot

The Idiot (1868–9)

“Humiliate the reason and distort the soul…”

Fyodor Dostoyevsky book The Idiot

The Idiot (1868–9)

“Hold your tongue; you won't understand anything. If there is no God, then I am God.”

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Kirilov, Part III, Ch. VI, "A busy night"
The Possessed (1872)

“So long as man remains free he strives for nothing so incessantly and so painfully as to find some one to worship.”

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

The Brothers Karamazov (1879–1880)

“Accept suffering and achieve atonement through it — that is what you must do.”

Fyodor Dostoyevsky book Crime and Punishment

Crime and Punishment (1866)

“No one but you and one ‘jade’ I have fallen in love with, to my ruin. But being in love doesn’t mean loving. You may be in love with a woman and yet hate her.”

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

The Brothers Karamazov (1879–1880)

“I am a sick man… I am a wicked man. An unattractive man.”

Fyodor Dostoyevsky book Notes from Underground

Я человек больной... Я злой человек. Непривлекательный я человек.
Part 1, Chapter 1 (page 7)
Notes from Underground (1864)

“To be in love is not the same as loving. You can be in love with a woman and still hate her.”

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

The Brothers Karamazov (1879–1880)

“Pain and suffering are always inevitable for a large intelligence and a deep heart. The really great men must, I think, have great sadness on Earth.”

Fyodor Dostoyevsky book Crime and Punishment

Crime and Punishment (1866)

“I suddenly dreamt that I picked up the revolver and aimed it straight at my heart — my heart, and not my head; and I had determined beforehand to fire at my head, at my right temple. After aiming at my chest I waited a second or two, and suddenly my candle, my table, and the wall in front of me began moving and heaving. I made haste to pull the trigger.”

Fyodor Dostoyevsky book The Dream of a Ridiculous Man

Source: The Dream of a Ridiculous Man (1877), III

“So long as man remains free he strives for nothing so incessantly and so painfully as to find someone to worship. But man seeks to worship what is established beyond dispute, so that all men would agree at once to worship it. For these pitiful creatures are concerned not only to find what one or the other can worship, but to find community of worship is the chief misery of every man individually and of all humanity from the beginning of time. For the sake of common worship they’ve slain each other with the sword. They have set up gods and challenged one another, ‘Put away your gods and come and worship ours, or we will kill you and your gods!’ And so it will be to the end of the world, even when gods disappear from the earth; they will fall down before idols just the same.”

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

The Brothers Karamazov (1879–1880)