53 Quotes About Dostoyevsky

Moreover, I felt weak and in the right mood, and besides, shamming so easily coexists with sincere feeling.

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.

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.

His widow Anna dedicated most of her energy in her later years to shaping Dostoyevsky’s legacy and presenting it to the world.

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.

But here I should imagine the most terrible part of the whole punishment is, not the bodily pain at all—but the certain knowledge that in an hour, then in ten minutes, then in half a minute, then now—this very instant—your soul must quit your body and that you will no longer be a man—and that this is certain, certain!

...thinking about laughing with 2 yr old Findlay today - Dostoyevsky was right, “The soul is healed by being with children.” ...

But like a boat with a twisted rudder, I kept coming back to the same place. I wasn't going anywhere. I was myself, waiting on the shore for me to return. Was that so depressing?Who knows? Maybe that was 'despair.' What Turgenev called 'disillusionment.' Or Dostoyevsky, 'hell.' Or Somerset Maugham, 'reality.' Whatever the label, I figured it was me.

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.