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Fyodor Dostoyevsky

" There are some people about whom it is difficult to say anything which would describe them immediately and fully in their most typical and characteristic aspects; these are the people who are usually called "ordinary" and accounted as "the majority," and who actually do make up the great majority of society. In their novels and stories writers most often try to choose and present vividly and artistically social types which are extremely seldom encountered in real life, and which are nevertheless more real than real life itself. Podkolyosin, viewed as a type, in perhaps exaggerated, but he is hardly unknown. How many clever people having learned from Gogol about Podkolyosin at once discover that great numbers of their friends bear a terrific resemblance to Podkolyosin. They knew before Gogol that their friends were like Podkolyosin, except they did not know yet that that was their name...Nevertheless the question remains before us: what is the novelist to do with the absolutely "ordinary" people, and how can he present them to readers so that they are at all interesting? To leave them out of a story completely is not possible, because ordinary people are at every moment, by and large, the necessary links in the chain of human affairs; leaving them out, therefore, means to destroy credibility. To fill a novel entirely with types or, simply for the sake of interest, strange and unheard-of people, would be improbable and most likely not even interesting. In our opinion the writer must try to find interesting and informative touches even among commonplace people. When, for example, the very nature of certain ordinary persons consists precisely of their perpetual and unvarying ordinariness, or, better still, when in spite of their most strenuous efforts to life themselves out of the rut of ordinariness and routine, then such persons acquire a certain character of their own-the typical character of mediocrity which refuses to remain what it is and desires at all costs to become original and independent, without having the slightest capacity for independence. "

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Art

related quotes

" I drink because I wish to multiply my sufferings. "

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Alcohol

" You don't feed nightingales on fairy-tales "

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

nightingales

" We've got facts," they say. But facts aren't everything; at least half the battle consists in how one makes use of them! "

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Battle , Facts

" Fathers, provoke not your children to wrath. "

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Karma

" At first it was simply liking, Nastenka, but now, now !I am just in the same position as you were when you went to him with your bundle. In a worse position than you, Nastenka,because he cared for no one else as you do. "

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

liking

" In any case, you must remember, my dearest, that the main strength of innocence is innocence itself. farewell. "

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Innocence

" I love her with all my soul. Why, she is a child! She's a child now ‚Äî a real child. Oh! you know nothing about it at all, I see.""And are you assured, at the same time, that you love Aglaya too?""Yes ‚Äî yes ‚Äî oh; yes!""How so? Do you want to make out that you love them BOTH?""Yes ‚Äî yes ‚Äî both! I do!""Excuse me, prince, but think what you are saying! Recollect yourself!""Without Aglaya ‚Äî I ‚Äî I MUST see Aglaya! ‚Äî I shall die in my sleep very soon ‚Äî I thought I was dying in my sleep last night. Oh! if Aglaya only knew all ‚Äî I mean really, REALLY all! Because she must know ALL ‚Äî that's the first condition towards understanding. Why cannot we ever know all about another, especially when that other has been guilty? But I don't know what I'm talking about ‚Äî I'm so confused. You pained me so dreadfully. Surely ‚Äî surely Aglaya has not the same expression now as she had at the moment when she ran away? Oh, yes! I am guilty and I know it ‚Äî I know it! Probably I am in fault all round ‚Äî I don't quite know how ‚Äî but I am in fault, no doubt. There is something else, but I cannot explain it to you, Evgenie Pavlovitch. I have no words; but Aglaya will understand. I have always believed Aglaya will understand ‚Äî I am assured she will.""No, prince, she will not. Aglaya loved like a woman, like a human being, not like an abstract spirit. Do you know what, my poor prince? The most probable explanation of the matter is that you never loved either the one or the other in reality. "

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Innocence

" You will have many enemies, but even your foes will love you. Life will bring you many misfortunes, but you will find your happiness in them, and will bless life and will make others bless it--which is what matters most. "

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Happiness

" To go wrong in one's own way is better than to go right in someone else's. "

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Someone

" And what if there are only spiders there, or something of that sort "

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Afterlife

" Lying to ourselves is more deeply ingrained than lying to others. "

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Lying

" I love it when people lie! Lying is only man's privilege over all other organisms. Lying is what makes me a man. "

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Lying

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