1,167 Quotes by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Alyosha looked at him in silence.“I thought that going away from here I have you at least,” Ivan said suddenly, with unexpected feeling; “but now I see that there is no place for me even in your heart, my dear hermit. The formula, ‘all is lawful,’ I won't renounce—will you renounce me for that, yes?”Alyosha got up, went to him and softly kissed him on the lips.“That's plagiarism,” cried Ivan, highly delighted.

Sí, a veces la idea más absurda, la idea más fantástica en apariencia, se apodera de nosotros con tal fuerza que acabamos por creerla realizable.

Oh, Karamazov, I am deeply unhappy.

Oh, Karamazov, I am deeply unhappy. I sometimes imagine God only knows what, that everyone is laughing at me, the entire world, and at such moments, at such moments I am quiet simply ready to annihilate the entire order of things.

What's the most offensive is not their lying- one can always forgive lying- lying is a delightful thing, for it leads to truth- what is offensive is that they lie and worship their own lying....

[T]hat they may believe you, you must say it as obscurely as possible, just like that, simply in hints. You must only give them a peep of the truth, just enough to tantalize them. They'll tell a story better than ours, and of course they'll believe themselves more than they would us...

Truth with love is a lie

they may all be drunk at my place, but they're all honest, and though we do lie-because I lie, too-in the end we'll lie our way to the truth

The Russian soul is a dark place.