Dostoyevsky Quotes

“Anna Karenina is sheer perfection as a work of art. No European work of fiction of our present day comes anywhere near it. Furthermore, the idea underlying it shows that it is ours, ours, something that belongs to us alone and that is our own property, our own national 'new word'or, at any rate, the beginning of it.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky

“An artist must know the reality he is depicting in its minutest detail. In my opinion we have only one shining example of that - Count Leo Tolstoy.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky

“Reading Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov is comparable to pushing a beautiful grand piano up a very steep hill.”
― Kevin Ansbro

“Now life is given in exchange for pain and fear, and that's the basis of the whole deception. Now man is still not what he should be. There will e a new man, happy and proud. Whoever doesn't care whether he lives or doesn't live, he himself will be God. And that other God will no longer be.'
'So, that other God does exist, in your opinion?'
'He doesn't exist, but he does exist. In the stone there' no pain, but in the fear of the stone there is pain. God is the pain of the fear of death. Whoever conquers pain and fear will himself become God.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky

“Not only had his wife Anna made Dostoyevsky’s creations possible, but, in a way, Anna was the [female] ideal behind his creations.”
― Andrew D. Kaufman, The Gambler Wife: A True Story of Love, Risk, and the Woman Who Saved Dostoyevsky

“As aparições são, por assim dizer, pedaços ou fragmentos de outros mundos, o seu princípio. É claro que o homem são não tem motivo para vê-las, porque o homem são é o homem mais terreno, e deve viver uma vida terrestre, em harmonia e ordem. Mas quando adoece, ou quando a ordem terrena se altera no organismo, começa imediatamente a se mostrar a possibilidade de outro mundo, e, quanto mais doente, mais em contato com esse outro mundo ele se encontra, de maneira que, quando morre completamente, o homem vai direto para esse mundo”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Crime and Punishment

“His wife Anna’s presence can be felt everywhere in these final years of Dostoyevsky’s life: in his writings, his speeches, in the very fact of his physical survival.”
― Andrew D. Kaufman, The Gambler Wife: A True Story of Love, Risk, and the Woman Who Saved Dostoyevsky

“There's no easier pastime than bad-mouthing the church. Much like bad-mouthing Dostoyevsky: it's true, of course, all true, but it also misses the point. The church is a thing of wonder, Dostoyevsky is a thing of wonder, and the fact that we Russians are still here—that, too, is a thing of wonder.”
― Maxim Osipov, Rock, Paper, Scissors: And Other Stories

“Standing quietly in the shade of the literary giant Dostoyevsky, his wife Anna is often erased from the historical record.”
― Andrew D. Kaufman, The Gambler Wife: A True Story of Love, Risk, and the Woman Who Saved Dostoyevsky

“His wife Anna was the living embodiment of the principles of Russian courage, moral integrity, and active love that had become central to Dostoyevsky’s worldview.”
― Andrew D. Kaufman, The Gambler Wife: A True Story of Love, Risk, and the Woman Who Saved Dostoyevsky

“Do you know that you have reconciled me to myself for a long time to come now? Do you know that I shall no longer think so ill of myself as I am sometimes apt to do? Do you know that I may not despair any longer that I have committed a crime and a sin in my life, for a life like mine is a crime and a sin? And pray do not think I have exaggerated anything to you, for heaven’s sake do not think that, Nastenka, because at times I am possessed by melancholy, such utter melancholy . . . . Because when these spells come over me, I begin to think that I am incapable of ever starting to live a new, a real life, because it seems to me that I have already lost all touch, all sense of the real and the actual, because I had been selling my soul, because my nights of fantasy are now followed by moments of soberness, and they are frightening! And meanwhile, you can hear life clamouring and eddying about you in a human whirlpool, you can hear, you can see that their world has not been made to order, that it will not be shattered like a dream or a vision, that their life is ever youthful, ever rejuvenescent, and that every hour in it differs from the last, whereas timorous fancy is bleak and monotonous to the point of boredom, a slave to every shadow and notion, a slave to the first cloud that blots out the sun and wrings with distress the heart of every true man.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, White Nights

“Remember this, Anya,” Dostoyevsky told his wife on his deathbed, “I always loved you passionately and was never unfaithful to you even in my thoughts.”
― Andrew D. Kaufman, The Gambler Wife: A True Story of Love, Risk, and the Woman Who Saved Dostoyevsky

“But now, strange as it seems, a peasant's small, scrawny. light brown nag is harnessed to such a large cart, one of those horses he's seen it often that sometimes strain to pull some huge load of firewood or hay. Especially if the cart has gotten stuck in the mud or a rut. The peasants always whip the horse so terribly, so very painfully, sometimes even across its muzzle and eyes, and he would always feel so sorry, so very sorry to witness it that he would feel like crying, and his mother would always lead him away from the window. Now things are getting extremely boisterous: some very large and extremely drunken peasants in red and blue shirts, their heavy coats slung over their shoulders. come out of the tavern shouting, singing. and playing balalaikas. “Git in. everyone git in!" shouts one peasant, a young lad with a thick neck and a fleshy face, red as a beet, “I'll take ya all. Git in!" But there is a burst of laughter and shouting:

“That ol’ nag ain't good for nothin'!"

“Hey, Mikolka, you must be outta yer head to hitch that ol' mare to yer cart!"

“That poor ol' horse must be twenty if she's a day, lads!"

“Git in, I'll take ya all!" Mikolka shouts again,jumping in first, taking hold of the reins, and standing up straight in the front of the cart. “Matvei went off with the bay," he cries from the cart, “and as for this ol' mare here, lads, she's only breakin' my heart: I don't give a damn ifit kills ’er; she ain't worth her salt. Git in, I tell ya! I'll make 'er gallop! She’ll gallop, all right!" And he takes the whip in his hand, getting ready to thrash the horse with delight.

"What the hell, git in!" laugh several people in the crowd. "You heard 'im, she'll gallop!"

“I bet she ain't galloped in ten years!"

"She will now!"

“Don't pity 'er, lads; everyone, bring yer whips, git ready!" "That's it! Thrash 'er!" They all clamber into Mikolka's cart with guffaws and wisecracks. There are six lads and room for more. They take along a peasant woman, fat and ruddy. She's wearing red calico, a headdress trimmed with beads, and fur slippers; she‘s cracking nuts and cackling. The crowd’s also laughing; as a matter of fact, how could one keep from laughing at the idea of a broken down old mare about to gallop, trying to pull such a heavy load! Two lads in the cart grab their whips to help Mikolka. The shout rings out: “Pull!" The mare strains with all her might, but not only can’t she gallop, she can barely take a step forward; she merely scrapes her hooves, grunts, and cowers from the blows of the three whips raining down on her like hail. Laughter redoubles in the cart and among the crowd, but Mikolka grows angry and in his rage strikes the little mare with more blows, as if he really thinks she’ll be able to gallop. “Take me along, too, lads!" shouts someone from the crowd who’s gotten a taste of the fun.

“Git in! Everyone, git inl" cries Mikolka. “She'll take everyone. I‘ll flog 'er!" And he whips her and whips her again; in his frenzy, he no longer knows what he’s doing.

“Papa, papa," the boy cries to his father. “Papa, what are they doing? Papa, they‘re beating the poor horse!"

“Let's go, let's go!" his father says. “They’re drunk, misbehaving, those fools: let’s go. Don't look!" He tries to lead his son away. but the boy breaks from his father‘s arms; beside himself, he runs toward the horse. But the poor horse is on her last legs. Gasping for breath, she stops, and then tries to pull again, about to drop.

“Beat 'er to death!" cries Mikolka. ”That's what it's come to. I‘ll flog ‘er!"

“Aren't you a Christian. you devil?" shouts one old man from the crowd.

“Just imagine, asking an ol' horse like that to pull such a heavy load,” adds another.

“You‘ll do 'er in!" shouts a third.

“Leave me alone! She’s mine! I can do what I want with 'er! Git in, all of ya! Everyone git in I'm gonna make 'er gallop!”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Crime and Punishment

“Anna Dostoyevskaya found a purpose to guide her life: to honor her own experiences and potential while celebrating the work of Dostoyevsky, the artist, the man, she loved.”
― Andrew D. Kaufman, The Gambler Wife: A True Story of Love, Risk, and the Woman Who Saved Dostoyevsky

“His widow Anna dedicated most of her energy in her later years to shaping Dostoyevsky’s legacy and presenting it to the world.”
― Andrew D. Kaufman, The Gambler Wife: A True Story of Love, Risk, and the Woman Who Saved Dostoyevsky

“Dostoyevsky’s widow insisted that her husband was to literature what the physicist-founder of the X-ray was to the human body: the inventor of a wholly new means of peering inside the human soul.”
― Andrew D. Kaufman, The Gambler Wife: A True Story of Love, Risk, and the Woman Who Saved Dostoyevsky

“Beyond participating in Dostoevsky’s creative work as his stenographer, first reader, and editor, his wife Anna also controlled all other aspects of their publishing enterprise.”
― Andrew D. Kaufman, The Gambler Wife: A True Story of Love, Risk, and the Woman Who Saved Dostoyevsky

“Thus began Anna Dostoyevskaya’s career as Russia’s first sole woman publisher, a career that would in time wrest Dostoyevsky out of debt and continue to provide for their family for almost the next four decades.”
― Andrew D. Kaufman, The Gambler Wife: A True Story of Love, Risk, and the Woman Who Saved Dostoyevsky

“Do you understand, do you understand, dear sir, what It means to have nowhere left to go?”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky

“There's just one thing: how can I make a compact with the earth evermore? I don't kiss the earth, I don't tear open her bosom; what should I do, become a peasant or a shepherd? I keep going and I don't know; have I gotten into stench and shame, or into light and joy? That's the whole trouble, because everything on earth is a riddle.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

“Moreover, I felt weak and in the right mood, and besides, shamming so easily coexists with sincere feeling.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Notes from the Underground & Other Stories

“Sus cabellos eran de un negro casi exagerada y sus ojos, muy claros y serenos. Su tez, delicada, de un blanco demasiado puro y un rosa vivo. Dientes semejantes a perlas y labios color coral. Un hombre muy hermoso, pero con algo repelente. Se decía que su rostro semeja una máscara y que no contaba más que con su fuerza física pues era de talla elevada.”
― Dostoevskij Fedor Mikhajlovich

“The main hero of this culture is a criminal, a murderer. The crime story is the only contemporary narrative that is able to capture the collective imagination... The outlaw is truly sovereign and even sacred because he or she represents not (ordinary) life but death in a society for which death is the absolute master... Of course, such killers who kill only to become sovereign and maybe even sacral are rare (mostly to be found in Dostoyevsky's novels).”
― Boris Groys, Philosophy of Care

“Los bebedores empedernidos acaban por no salie nunca de un estado confuso, incoherente,  que lleva a la locura, pero que no les impide engañar y ser tan astutos como lo demás, si es preciso”
― Dostoevsky

“Estan en los cierto quienes afirman que la segunda parte de la vida humana esta determinada por las costumbres adquiridas durante la primera”
― Dostoevsky

“They resolved to wait and endure. They still had seven years more and until then so much unbearable suffering and so much infinite happiness! But he was risen and he knew it, he felt it fully with the whole of his renewed being, and she—she lived just by his life alone!”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment

“These three people, Pascal, Blake, and Dostoyevsky, illustrate perfectly what I have long believed to be the case, that history consists of parables whereby God communicates in terms that the imagination rather than the mind, faith rather than knowledge, can grasp.”
― Malcolm Muggeridge, The End of Christendom

“If no one remembers becomes the equivalent of If there is no God. If there is no God, Dostoyevsky said, then everything is permitted.”
― Georgi Gospodinov, Time Shelter

“Glory on earth to the Highest, Glory to the Highest in me.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

“Glory to God on earth, Glory to God in me.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov