René Calz. > René 's Quotes

“Pain and suffering are always inevitable for a large intelligence and a deep heart. The really great men must, I think, have great sadness on earth.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment

“Above all, don't lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

“What is hell? I maintain that it is the suffering of being unable to love.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

“Man only likes to count his troubles; he doesn't calculate his happiness.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, Notes from Underground, White Nights, The Dream of a Ridiculous Man, and Selections from The House of the Dead

“The soul is healed by being with children.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky

“But how could you live and have no story to tell?”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, White Nights

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

“The awful thing is that beauty is mysterious as well as terrible. God and the devil are fighting there and the battlefield is the heart of man.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

“Man is sometimes extraordinarily, passionately, in love with suffering...”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky

“Beauty will save the world.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Idiot

“It is not the brains that matter most, but that which guides them — the character, the heart, generous qualities, progressive ideas.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky

“I think the devil doesn't exist, but man has created him, he has created him in his own image and likeness.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

“To love is to suffer and there can be no love otherwise.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, Notes from Underground

“Love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing compared to love in dreams.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

“The cleverest of all, in my opinion, is the man who calls himself a fool at least once a month.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky

“We're always thinking of eternity as an idea that cannot be understood, something immense. But why must it be? What if, instead of all this, you suddenly find just a little room there, something like a village bath-house, grimy, and spiders in every corner, and that's all eternity is. Sometimes, you know, I can't help feeling that that's what it is.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment

“I believe like a child that suffering will be healed and made up for, that all the humiliating absurdity of human contradictions will vanish like a pitiful mirage, like the despicable fabrication of the impotent and infinitely small Euclidean mind of man, that in the world's finale, at the moment of eternal harmony, something so precious will come to pass that it will suffice for all hearts, for the comforting of all resentments, for the atonement of all the crimes of humanity, for all the blood that they've shed; that it will make it not only possible to forgive but to justify all that has happened.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

“Power is given only to him who dares to stoop and take it ... one must have the courage to dare.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment

“The more I love humanity in general the less I love man in particular. In my dreams, I often make plans for the service of humanity, and perhaps I might actually face crucifixion if it were suddenly necessary. Yet I am incapable of living in the same room with anyone for two days together. I know from experience. As soon as anyone is near me, his personality disturbs me and restricts my freedom. In twenty-four hours I begin to hate the best of men: one because he’s too long over his dinner, another because he has a cold and keeps on blowing his nose. I become hostile to people the moment they come close to me. But it has always happened that the more I hate men individually the more I love humanity.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

“Existentialism isn't so atheistic that it wears itself out showing that God doesn't exist. Rather, it declares that even if God did exist, that would change nothing.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky

“Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right.”
― Salvor Hardin

“To love someone means to see them as God intended them.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky

“Friends can make you feel that the world is smaller and less sneaky than it really is, because you know people who have similar experiences.”
― Lemony Snicket, The Austere Academy

“Never trust anyone who has not brought a book with them.”
― Lemony Snicket, Horseradish: Bitter Truths You Can't Avoid

“Well-read people are less likely to be evil.”
― Lemony Snicket, The Slippery Slope

“The sad truth is the truth is sad.”
― Lemony Snicket, The Hostile Hospital

“It is difficult, when faced with a situation you cannot control, to admit you can do nothing.”
― Lemony Snicket, Horseradish: Bitter Truths You Can't Avoid

“The function of prayer is not to influence God, but rather to change the nature of the one who prays.”
― Soren Kierkegaard

“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.”
― Søren Kierkegaard

“People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use.”
― Søren Kierkegaard