"He’s an intelligent man, but it takes something more than intelligence to act intelligently."
— Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky (via that-damned-elusive-pimpernel)
(Source: of-cannibals-and-kings)
"Is there such despair in the world as could overcome this wild and perhaps indecent thirst for life in me?"
— Dostoevsky (via collegenihilist)
(Source: meditationsinwonderland)
"In life, sheer hosanna is not enough, for things must be tested in the crucible of doubt."
— Dostoevsky (via yingpow)
"To be surprised at nothing, they say, is a sign of great intelligence; in my opinion, it might serve equally as a sign of great stupidity."
— Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Idiot (via vvmatsyuk)
(Source: mymalegaze)
Project: Fyodor Dostoevsky (2011)
A series of postcards for the anniversary of Fyodor Dostoevsky (190 year anniversary).
"But what sort of idiot am I now, when I myself understand that I’m considered an idiot?"
— Prince Lev Nikolaevich Myshkin from Fyodor Dostoevsky’s The Idiot (via vvmatsyuk)
(Source: mymalegaze)
"Tell me this: why does it happen that at the very, yes, at the very moments when I am most capable of feeling every refinement of all that is “sublime and beautiful,” as they used to say at one time, it would, as though of design, happen to me not only to feel but to do such ugly things, such that … Well, in short, actions that all, perhaps, commit; but which, as though purposely, occurred to me at the very time when I was most conscious that they ought not to be committed. The more conscious I was of goodness and of all that was “sublime and beautiful,” the more deeply I sank into my mire and the more ready I was to sink in it altogether."
— Dostoevsky, Notes from the Underground (via goldenspiral)
"He did not know and did not think about where he was going; he knew only one thing- that “all this must be ended today, at once, right now; otherwise he would not go back home, because he did not want to live like that.” Ended how? Ended by what? Of that he had no idea, nor did he want to think about it. He kept driving the thought away; the thought tormented him. He simply felt and knew that everything had to change, one way or another, “no matter how,” he repeated with desperate, fixed self-confidence and resolution."
— Crime and Punishment
"But after all, what is goodness? Answer that, Alyosha. Goodness is one thing with me and another with a Chinaman, so it’s relative. Or isn’t it? Is it not relative? A treacherous question! You won’t laugh if I tell you it’s kept me awake for two nights. I only wonder ow people can live and think nothing about it. Vanity!"
— Dmitri Karamazov (via musicdrew)
“I am a dreamer. I know so little of real life that I just can’t help re-living such moments as these in my dreams, for such moments are something I have very rarely experienced. I am going to dream about you the whole night, the whole week, the whole year.”
—Fyodor Dostoyevsky, White Nights
(Source: thoughtspapersballons)
"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!… How true it is! Good God, how true! Man is a vile creature!… And vile is he who calls him vile for that."
— from Crime and Punishment, by Fyodor Dostoevsky (via ilovesatiredays)
(Source: modus-trollens)
"God, sir, Providence itself, sir, it’s right here with us now, sir, only don’t look for it, you won’t find it."
— Smerdyakov to Ivan Fyodorovich in Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Brothers Karamozov, Part IV, Book XI, Chapter 8 (via themtn)
"I am a ridiculous person. Now they call me a madman. That would be a promotion if it were not that I remain as ridiculous in their eyes as before."
— Dostoevsky, The Dream of a Ridiculous Man (via wellwrittenwords)
"All is in a man’s hands and he lets it all slip from cowardice, that’s an axiom. It would be interesting to know what it is men are most afraid of. Taking a new step, uttering a new word is what they fear most."
— Crime and Punishment - Dostoevsky (via filiushominis)
(Source: tearingholesintheuniverse)
