Quotes

If not reason, then the devil.

Accept suffering and achieve atonement through it — that is what you must do.

Variant translation: Nothing in this world is harder than speaking the truth, nothing easier than flattery.

Nothing in the world is harder than speaking the truth and nothing easier than flattery. If there’s the hundredth part of a false note in speaking the truth, it leads to a discord, and that leads to trouble. But if all, to the last note, is false in flattery, it is just as agreeable, and is heard not without satisfaction. It may be a coarse satisfaction, but still a satisfaction. And however coarse the flattery, at least half will be sure to seem true. That’s so for all stages of development and classes of society.

Do a man dirt, yourself you hurt.

"You're a gentleman," they used to say to him. "You shouldn't have gone murdering people with a hatchet; that's no occupation for a gentleman."

Talking nonsense is man's only privilege that distinguishes him from all other organisms.

Man grows used to everything, the scoundrel.

Taking a new step, uttering a new word, is what people fear most.

Accept suffering and achieve atonement through it — that is what you must do.

These are just a few samples; for more quotes from this work, see Crime and Punishment

To become what one is, one must not have the faintest idea what one is.

After coming into contact with a religious man I always feel I must wash my hands.

All things considered, I could never have survived my youth without Wagnerian music. For I seemed condemned to the society of Germans. If a man wishes to rid himself of a feeling of unbearable oppression, he may have to take to hashish. Well, I had to take to Wagner...

I know my fate. One day my name will be associated with the memory of something tremendous - a crisis without equal on earth, the most profound collision of conscience, a decision that was conjured up against everything that had been believed, demanded, hallowed so far. I am no man, I am dynamite.

One must pay dearly for immortality; one has to die several times while still alive.

Nothing on earth consumes a man more quickly than the passion of resentment.

The man of knowledge must be able not only to love his enemies but also to hate his friends.

How I understand the philosopher - as a terrible explosive, endangering everthing... my concept of the philosopher is worlds removed from any concept that would include even a Kant, not to speak of academic "ruminants" and other professors of philosophy...

Two great European narcotics, alcohol and Christianity.