190 years since birth of great Russian writer Fyodor Mikhaylovich Dostoyevsky. Dostoyevsky is often acknowledged by critics as one of the greatest and most prominent psychologists in world literature. Fyodor Dostoevsky’s genius continues to fascinate readers – and psychologists – more than a century after his death.
Fyodor Dostoyevsky Quotes
- To study the meaning of man and of life — I am making significant progress here. I have faith in myself. Man is a mystery: if you spend your entire life trying to puzzle it out, then do not say that you have wasted your time. I occupy myself with this mystery, because I want to be a man.
- Personal correspondence (1839), as quoted in Dostoevsky : His Life and Work (1971) by Konstantin Mochulski, as translated by Michael A. Minihan, p. 17
- If anyone could prove to me that Christ is outside the truth, and if the truth really did exclude Christ, I should prefer to stay with Christ and not with truth.
- Letter To Mme. N. D. Fonvisin (1854), as published in Letters of Fyodor Michailovitch Dostoevsky to his Family and Friends (1914), translated by Ethel Golburn Mayne, Letter XXI, p. 71
- The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons.
- The House of the Dead (1862) as translated by Constance Garnett
- It is not as a child that I believe and confess Jesus Christ. My hosanna is born of a furnace of doubt.
- As quoted in Kierkegaard, the Melancholy Dane (1950) by Harold Victor Martin.
- The second half of a man's life is made up of nothing but the habits he has acquired during the first half.
- As quoted in Peter's Quotations : Ideas for Our Time (1979) by Laurence J. Peter, p. 299.
