Fjodor Michajlovič Dostojevskij citáty

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„Vidíš, vraj, akú radosť má matka, keď sa na ňu jej dieťatko prvý raz usmeje, takú istú radosť má Boh zakaždým, keď z neba vidí hriešnika, ako sa k nemu z celého svojho srdca modlí.“

„Žiť bez nádeje znamená prestať žiť.“

„Ak chcete do človeka vniknúť a nazrieť mu do duše, neskúmajte, ako mlčí, alebo ako hovorí, alebo ako plače, ba ani to nie, ako blčí tými najvznešenejšími ideami, radšej sa mu prizrite, keď sa smeje.“

„Koho najväčšmi milujeme, tomu najväčšmi ubližujeme.“

„Nezáleží na tom, ako žiť, ale žiť!“

„Krása je strašná vec. Diabol v nej zápasí s Bohom a bojiskom sú ľudské srdcia.“

„Kto nemá národ, ten nemá ani Boha! Buďte si istí, že všetci tí, čo prestanú chápať svoj národ a strácajú s ním spojenie, strácajú zároveň vieru otcovskú, stávajú sa buď ateistami, alebo ľahostajnými.“

„S človekom žijúcim skutočne bez Boha som sa ešte nikdy nestretol. Namiesto toho som sa vždy stretával s človekom nepokojným.“

„Keby Boh neexistoval, bolo by všetko dovolené.“

„Socializmus je nielen otázka robotnícka alebo takzvaného štvrtého stavu, ale prevažne ateistická otázka, otázka súčasného vtelenia ateizmu, otázka Babylónskej veže, stavanej práve bez Boha, nie aby dosiahli nebesá zo zeme, ale aby nebesá strhli na zem.“

„Láska je buď malá alebo veľká. Nenávisť je vždy celá.“

„Láska nie je zábudlivá, len rada zabúda.“

„Láska je jediná nepremožiteľná sila na svete.“

„Boli dvaja, a zrazu je tu tretí človek, nový duch, celistvý, zavŕšený, ako ho ľudské ruky nedokážu vytvoriť; nová myseľ aj nová láska, až je to strašné… A niet nič vznešenejšie na svete!“

„Mnohí silní ľudia pociťujú akúsi prirodzenú potrebu nájsť niekoho alebo niečo, pred čím by sa mohli skloniť. Silnému človeku je niekedy vlastná sila veľmi na ťarchu.“

„Všetko je dobré… Všetko. Človek je nešťastný, pretože nevie, že je šťastný. Iba preto. To je všetko, všetko! Kto to pochopí, bude šťastný, šťastný ihneď, ešte v tom okamihu.“

„Asi najvyšším prejavom ľudskej dôstojnosti je priznať, že som hlúpejší, keď iný je naozaj rozumnejší a vtipnejší.“

„Súcit je hlavný a možno jediný zákon bytia celého ľudstva.“

„Kto mlčí je buď natoľko geniálny že nechce ublížiť, alebo hlúpy a nemá čo povedať.“

„Šťastie nespočíva v šťastí, ale v jeho dosahovaní.“

„Sloboda plodí otroctvo.“

„Kto ľahko stráca úctu k druhým, ten si neváži sám seba.“

„Človek je nešťastný preto, lebo nevie, že je šťastný; jedine preto. To je všetko, všetko! Kto sa to dozvie, ten sa hneď stane šťastným, v tom okamihu.“

„V niektorých prípadoch sa víťaz musí hanbiť pred porazeným práve za to, že nad ním zvíťazil.“

„Hlúposť je stručná a nie ľstivá, ale rozum prekrúca a skrýva sa. Rozum je podliak, ale hlúposť je priama a statočná.“

„Tvrdím, že najlepší človek môže zvykom zhrubnúť a otupieť na úroveň zvera. Krv a moc opájajú: Rozvíja sa hrubosť, zvrhlosť; rozum i zmysly vnímajú napokon tie najnemorálnejšie veci ako čosi príjemné.“

„Utrpenie, to je i život. Aké potešenie by bolo v ňom bez utrpenia?“

„Treba akosi znova trpieť za naše budúce šťastie; vykúpiť ho akýmisi novými mukami. Utrpenie všetko očisťuje…“

„Tajné vedomie moci je až neznesiteľne príjemnejšie než zjavná nadvláda.“

„Peniaze sú razená sloboda.“

„Vzdelanosť sa spája niekedy s takou beštialitou, s takým cynizmom, až sa vám to bridí, a čo akí dobrí alebo zaujatí by ste boli, nenájdete vo svojom srdci ani odpustenie, ani ospravedlnenie.“

„Všetko je iba konvencia, všetko je relatívne, iba formálne. - Zločin a trest“

„Skôr si blbec prinajmenšom jeden krát za rok uvedomil, že je blbec, ale dneska ani nápad.“

„Prestali ste rozlišovať zlo a dobro, pretože ste prestali spoznávať svoj národ.“

„Neschopnosť milovať - to je peklo.“

“But,' I [Dmitri Karamazov] asked, 'how will man be after that? Without God and the future life? It means everything is permitted now, one can do anything?' 'Didn't you know?' he said. And he laughed. 'Everything is permitted to the intelligent man,' he said.”

“Do a man dirt, yourself you hurt.”

“Neither a person nor a nation can exist without some higher idea. And there is only one higher idea on earth, and it is the idea of the immortality of the human soul, for all other "higher" ideas of life by which humans might live derive from that idea alone.”

“Who consciously throws himself into the water or onto the knife?”

“Yes — you, you alone must pay for everything because you turned up like this, because I'm a scoundrel, because I'm the nastiest, most ridiculous, pettiest, stupidest, and most envious worm of all those living on earth who're no better than me in any way, but who, the devil knows why, never get embarrassed, while all my life I have to endure insults from every louse — that's my fate. What do I care that you do not understand any of this?”

“Man grows used to everything, the scoundrel.”

“If not reason, then the devil.”

“If they drive God from the earth, we shall shelter Him underground.”

“For everyone strives to keep his individuality as apart as possible, wishes to secure the greatest possible fullness of life for himself; but meantime all his efforts result not in attaining fullness of life but self-destruction, for instead of self-realisation he ends by arriving at complete solitude. All mankind in our age have split up into units, they all keep apart, each in his own groove; each one holds aloof, hides himself and hides what he has, from the rest, and he ends by being repelled by others and repelling them. He heaps up riches by himself and thinks, ‘How strong I am now and how secure,’ and in his madness he does not understand that the more he heaps up, the more he sinks into self-destructive impotence. For he is accustomed to rely upon himself alone and to cut himself off from the whole; he has trained himself not to believe in the help of others, in men and in humanity, and only trembles for fear he should lose his money and the privileges that he has won for himself. Everywhere in these days men have, in their mockery, ceased to understand that the true security is to be found in social solidarity rather than in isolated individual effort. But this terrible individualism must inevitably have an end, and all will suddenly understand how unnaturally they are separated from one another. It will be the spirit of the time, and people will marvel that they have sat so long in darkness without seeing the light.”

“When… in the course of all these thousands of years has man ever acted in accordance with his own interests?”

“Once it's been proved to you that you're descended from an ape, it's no use pulling a face; just accept it. Once they've proved to you that a single droplet of your own fat must be dearer to you than a hundred thousand of your fellow human beings and consequently that all so-called virtues and duties are nothing but ravings and prejudices, then accept that too, because there's nothing to be done.”

“I go to spread the tidings, I want to spread the tidings — of what? Of the truth, for I have seen it, have seen it with my own eyes, have seen it in all its glory.”

“Men reject their prophets and slay them, but they love their martyrs and honor those they have slain.”

“A widow, the mother of a family, and from her heart she produces chords to which my whole being responds.”

“Russia was a slave in Europe but would be a master in Asia.”

“Nothing in this world is harder than speaking the truth, nothing easier than flattery.”

“It's easier for a Russian to become an atheist than for anyone else in the world.”

“I consider you the most honest and truthful of men, more honest and truthful than anyone; and if they say that your mind... that is, that you're sometimes afflicted in your mind, it's unjust. I made up my mind about that, and disputed with others, because, though you really are mentally afflicted (you won't be angry with that, of course; I'm speaking from a higher point of view), yet the mind that matters is better in you than in any of them. It's something, in fact, they have never dreamed of. For there are two sorts of mind: one that matters, and one that doesn't matter.”

“Even those who have renounced Christianity and attack it, in their inmost being still follow the Christian ideal, for hitherto neither their subtlety nor the ardor of their hearts has been able to create a higher ideal of man and of virtue than the ideal given by Christ.”

“For socialism is not merely the labour question, it is before all things the atheistic question, the question of the form taken by atheism to-day, the question of the tower of Babel built without God, not to mount to heaven from earth but to set up heaven on earth.”

“And what is it in us that is mellowed by civilization? All it does, I’d say, is to develop in man a capacity to feel a greater variety of sensations. And nothing, absolutely nothing else. And through this development, man will yet learn how to enjoy bloodshed. Why, it has already happened.... Civilization has made man, if not always more bloodthirsty, at least more viciously, more horribly bloodthirsty.”

“Having disburdened his heart, the Inquisitor waits for some time to hear his prisoner speak in His turn. His silence weighs upon him. He has seen that his captive has been attentively listening to him all the time, with His eyes fixed penetratingly and softly on the face of his jailer, and evidently bent upon not replying to him. The old man longs to hear His voice, to hear Him reply; better words of bitterness and scorn than His silence. Suddenly He rises; slowly and silently approaching the Inquisitor, He bends towards him and softly kisses the bloodless, four-score and-ten-year-old lips. That is all the answer…”

“A terrible commotion rages among them, the populace shouts and loudly weeps, when suddenly, before the cathedral door, appears the Cardinal Grand Inquisitor himself…. He pauses before the crowd and observes. He has seen all. He has witnessed the placing of the little coffin at His feet, the calling back to life. And now, his dark, grim face has grown still darker; his bushy grey eyebrows nearly meet, and his sunken eye flashes with sinister light. Slowly raising his finger, he commands his minions to arrest Him…”

“He comes silently and unannounced; yet all--how strange--yea, all recognize Him, at once! The population rushes towards Him as if propelled by some irresistible force; it surrounds, throngs, and presses around, it follows Him…. Silently, and with a smile of boundless compassion upon His lips, He crosses the dense crowd, and moves softly on.”

“Alas! I always loved sorrow and tribulation, but only for myself, for myself; but I wept over them, pitying them. I stretched out my hands to them in despair, blaming, cursing and despising myself. I told them that all this was my doing, mine alone; that it was I had brought them corruption, contamination and falsity. I besought them to crucify me, I taught them how to make a cross. I could not kill myself, I had not the strength, but I wanted to suffer at their hands. I yearned for suffering, I longed that my blood should be drained to the last drop in these agonies. But they only laughed at me, and began at last to look upon me as crazy. They justified me, they declared that they had only got what they wanted themselves, and that all that now was could not have been otherwise. At last they declared to me that I was becoming dangerous and that they should lock me up in a madhouse if I did not hold my tongue. Then such grief took possession of my soul that my heart was wrung, and I felt as though I were dying; and then... then I awoke.”

“Nor is there any embarrassment in the fact that we're ridiculous, isn't it true? For it's actually so, we are ridiculous, light-minded, with bad habits, we're bored, we don't know how to look, how to understand, we're all like that, all, you, and I, and they! Now, you're not offended when I tell you to your face that you're ridiculous? And if so, aren't you material? You know, in my opinion it's sometimes even good to be ridiculous, if not better: we can the sooner forgive each other, the sooner humble ourselves; we can't understand everything at once, we can't start right out with perfection! To achieve perfection, one must first begin by not understanding many things! And if we understand too quickly, we may not understand well. This I tell you, you, who have already been able to understand. .. and not understand … so much. I'm not afraid for you now;”

“First of all, this prince is an idiot, and, secondly, he is a fool--knows nothing of the world, and has no place in it.”

“If I seem happy to you . . . You could never say anything that would please me more. For men are made for happiness, and anyone who is completely happy has a right to say to himself, 'I am doing God's will on earth.'”

“I gave up caring about anything, and all the problems disappeared.
And it was after that that I found out the truth. I learnt the truth last November — on the third of November, to be precise — and I remember every instant since.”