10 Dostoevsky Quotes For Deep Thinkers
Dostoevsky dug deep into human psychology and life. He brought life lessons and wisdom like no other. These quotes are for the deepest thinkers..
Okay, this post is originally from Medium. My best-performing story on the platform. I thought I share it here on Substack with a little edit and AI-generated images. Why not, right?
Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky (Dostoevsky) was a 19th-century Russian thinker famous for his novels and short stories.
He dug deep into human psychology and life. His wisdom is still the best source of light for deep-thinking people of this day and age.
Hear from some credible sources:
Dostoevsky, the only psychologist, incidentally, from whom I had something to learn — Nietzsche
The real 19th-century prophet was Dostoevsky, not Karl Marx — Albert Camus
Here is a list of 10 Dostoevsky thoughts that will take you deep into the human consciousness (Don’t forget to come back for a comment though!)
10. Nothing in the world is harder than speaking the truth and nothing easier than flattery — Crime and Punishment
When we are moving towards our desires with full intensity, speed bumps that question us are annoying. For a person who wants things from us, it is healthier to tell us how well we drive than to show us what we’ve ignored!
9. Lack of originality, everywhere, all over the world, from time immemorial, has always been considered the foremost quality and the recommendation of the active, efficient and practical man…—The Idiot
To be original, you have to see deep. To see deep, you have to go slow. If you are slow, the world will seem faster. The world seems faster because it moves faster. It moves faster because it isn’t concerned about originality. It merely wants to ‘make it’
The ones who ‘make it’ fast are active, efficient, and practical!
(Cross-posting this article doesn’t show originality. But maybe I wanted to be practical now.)
8. A fool with a heart and no sense is just as unhappy as a fool with sense and no heart—The Idiot
A person deeply immersed in feelings rarely has control over things.
A person in control of things rarely has time for feelings.
Both are fools and unhappy!
7. Inventors and geniuses have almost always been looked on as no better than fools at the beginning of their career, and very frequently at the end of it also—The Idiot
If you see deeper than others, you will be called a fool because most aren’t even imagining what you can see.
If you go slower than others, you will be called a fool too, because most are running while you crawl with your diapers.
6. Above all, avoid falsehood, every kind of falsehood, especially falseness to yourself. Watch over your own deceitfulness and look into it every hour, every minute—The Brothers Karamazov
It’s dificult to listen to adverse things about ourselves. It’s almost impossible to admit them.
It’s easy to say wrong about others. It’s easier to consider them to be true.
First, stop lying to yourself. Stop lying to yourself that this Dostoevsky quote compilation you are doing on Substack is not for views, reads, email subscribers, and money.
Tell yourself loud and clear: I need money in life. I need it through my writing.
5. In most cases, people, even the most vicious, are much more naive and simple-minded than we assume them to be. And this is true of ourselves too—The Brothers Karamazov
This is where Dostoevsky’s genius truly shines.
In moments of both excitement and disappointment, we tend to exaggerate a lot. When our heroes satisfy our demands, we run out of positive adjectives for them. When someone pushes us away from where we desire to be, we run out of derogatory adjectives to describe that person.
And the same applies to our self-judgment. We, humans, are simple if we understand the basics. There are a few laws. We need to understand them.
4. To be in love is not the same as loving. You can be in love with a woman and still hate her—The Brothers Karamazov
Being in love is a feeling while loving is a temporary attitude. The former is romantic while the latter could mean sympathy, pity, and even awe.
The opposite of being in love is loathe. The opposite of loving is hating.
You can be in love with a person and still hate that person’s behavior, character, and actions.
3. Above all, do not lie to yourself. A man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point where he does not discern any truth either in himself or anywhere around him, and thus falls into disrespect towards himself and others—The Brothers Karamazov
If I lie so much that I begin lying to myself too, I will lose both the ability and the will to look at things truly.
That’s when I self-deceive. All I will try to do is convince myself and others that my point of view is the only truth and the only real way of looking at things. That is, I lie and falsify everything to both advance and defend my perspective and actions.
And what will all this lead to?
I lose the respect of others and therefore of myself.
I lose the respect of others because they can see through me. They can see that I am unoriginal, unworthy, and self-deceiving. Hence, they decode my game.
And once we perceive ourselves as being disrespected by others it’s impossible for us to respect ourselves.
2. For there are two sorts of mind: one that matters, and one that doesn’t matter—The Idiot
One type of mind is that which understands and pursues things of value and truth. The other type of mind doesn’t care about all that stuff. It pursues things of advantage.
We all have these two categories of minds within us. We can either pursue truth or things of advantage.
The mind that pursues truth is the one that matters. The other doesn’t!
1. Talking nonsense is man’s only privilege that distinguishes him from all other organisms—Crime and Punishment
It’s self-explanatory, take this article for instance,
While my dog here silently enjoys his life:
By the way, Mr. G is a virtual being with satire & brevity that I created on OpenAI. Browse the internet, host podcasts or just chat with Mr. G here:
Here’s the link to the latest episode of my podcast show with Mr. G called Tea with GPT:
25 QUESTIONS WITH GPT
In this episode, I play 25 Questions with Mr. G. From Mr. G's favorite writer to its favorite wrestler, I make Mr. G choose between countries and billionaires. And Mr. G answers all my questions. In Mr. G style!