Russia was a slave in Europe but would be a master in Asia. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky

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Engraved portrait of Fyodor Dostoyevsky, facing left

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

English
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About Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky or Dostoevsky [Фёдор Миха́йлович Достое́вский] (11 November 1821 - 9 February 1881) was a Russian novelist, short story writer, essayist, and journalist. Dostoevsky's literary works explore the human condition in the troubled political, social, and spiritual atmospheres of 19th-century Russia, and engage with a variety of philosophical and religious themes. Many literary critics rate him as one of the greatest novelists in all of world literature, as multiple of his works are considered highly influential masterpieces.

Biography information from Wikiquote · Portrait adapted from Wikimedia Commons, Vasily Perov (Public domain / CC0)

Also Known As

Pen Names: Д. Друг Кузьмы Пруткова Зубоскал —ий М. Летописец М-ий Н. Н. Пружинин Зубоскалов Ред. Ф. Д. N.N.
Native Name: Фёдор Михайлович Достоевский
Alternative Names: Dostoievski Fyodor Dostoievski Fyodor Mikhaylovich Dostoievski Fyodor Mikhaylovich Dostoyevsky Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky F.M. Dostoiewski Fyodor Dostoevsky Fyodor Doestoevsky Doestoevsky

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Additional quotes by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

There are seconds, they come only five or six at a time, and you suddenly feel the presence of eternal harmony, fully achieved. It is nothing earthly; not that it's heavenly, but man cannot endure it in his earthly state. One must change physically or die. The feeling is clear and indisputable. As if you suddenly sense the whole of nature and suddenly say: yes, this is true. God, when he was creating the world, said at the end of each day of creation: 'Yes, this is true, this is good.' This . . . this is not tenderheartedness, but simply joy. You don't forgive anything, because there is no longer anything to forgive. You don't really love — oh, what is here is higher than love! What's most frightening is that it's so terribly clear, and there's such joy. If it were longer than five seconds — the soul couldn't endure it and would vanish. In those five seconds I live my life through, and for them I would give my whole life, because it's worth it. To endure ten seconds one would have to change physically . . . .

There is something at the bottom of every new human thought, every thought of genius, or even every earnest thought that springs up in any brain, which can never be communicated to others, even if one were to write volumes about it and were explaining one's idea for thirty-five years; there's something left which cannot be induced to emerge from your brain, and remains with you forever; and with it you will die, without communicating to anyone perhaps the most important of your ideas.

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Every man has some reminiscences which he would not tell to everyone, but only to his friends. He has others which he would not reveal even to his friends, but only to himself, and that in secret. But finally there are still others which a man is even afraid to tell himself, and every decent man has a considerable number of such things stored away. That is, one can even say that the more decent he is, the greater the number of such things in his mind.

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