Fyodor Dostoyevsky

"I could never stand more than three months of dreaming at a time without feeling an irresistible desire to plunge into society. To plunge into society meant to visit my superior, Anton Antonich Syetochkin. He was the only permanent acquaintance I have had in my life, and I even wonder at the fact myself now. But I even went to see him only when that phase came over me, and when my dreams had reached such a point of bliss that it became essential to embrace my fellows and all mankind immediately. And for that purpose I needed at least one human being at hand who actually existed. I had to call on Anton Antonich, however, on Tuesday — his at-home day; so I always had to adjust my passionate desire to embrace humanity so that it might fall on a Tuesday."

"So long as man remains free he strives for nothing so incessantly and so painfully as to find some one to worship."

"Man grows used to everything, the scoundrel."

"And now once again I asked myself the question: do I love her? And once more I could not answer, that is to say, again, for the hundredth time, I answered that I hated her."

"Yes — you, you alone must pay for everything because you turned up like this, because Im a scoundrel, because Im the nastiest, most ridiculous, pettiest, stupidest, and most envious worm of all those living on earth whore no better than me in any way, but who, the devil knows why, never get embarrassed, while all my life I have to endure insults from every louse — thats my fate. What do I care that you do not understand any of this?"

"When... in the course of all these thousands of years has man ever acted in accordance with his own interests?"

"Is it really not possible to touch the gaming table without being instantly infected by superstition?"

"Money is coined liberty, and so it is ten times dearer to the man who is deprived of freedom. If money is jingling in his pocket, he is half consoled, even though he cannot spend it. But money can always and everywhere be spent, and, moreover, forbidden fruit is sweetest of all."

"Neither a person nor a nation can exist without some higher idea. And there is only one higher idea on earth, and it is the idea of the immortality of the human soul, for all other "higher" ideas of life by which humans might live derive from that idea alone."

"To care only for well-being seems to me positively ill-bred. Whether its good or bad, it is sometimes very pleasant, too, to smash things."

"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."

"To be in love is not the same as loving. You can be in love with a woman and still hate her."