Fyodor Dostoevsky

“I can see the sun, but even if I cannot see the sun, I know that it exists. And to know that the sun is there – that is living.”
-Fyodor Dostoevsky

Fyodor Dostoevsky, author of Crime and Punishment, The Brothers Karamazov, The Idiot, and many other novels and short stories, managed to capture something profound about human nature in all of his works. In a way he was a brilliant psychologist before the science of psychology had been founded. His writings cover themes of mysticism and transcendence, religious and spiritual despair, and the human inquietudes that exist within every person no matter their stage or station in life. 

In his life Dostoevsky was exiled and imprisoned for reading and promoting subversive literature. He lived many of his later years in poverty, and also suffered from epilepsy. He also found great love in his life and he never stopped writing despite many financial and physical difficulties. 

His books reveal the mind of someone sensitive enough to capture the subtleties of a person’s nature and draw deep, realistic characters from the briefest of descriptions. Dostoevsky grappled head-on with the real human struggle of seeking God, finding peace, and knowing love, in a cruel world with the terrible knowledge that we all have some of that cruelty within ourselves as well. Reading his works brings us to a certain truth about the human condition and inspires real compassion and hope by not turning away from the darkness.

“What is hell? I maintain that it is the suffering of being unable to love.”
– from The Brothers Karamazov

“The darker the night, the brighter the stars,  The deeper the grief, the closer is God!”
-Crime and Punishment

“The mystery of human existence lies not in just staying alive, but in finding something to live for.”
-The Brothers Karamazov

“The world says: “You have needs — satisfy them. You have as much right as the rich and the mighty. Don’t hesitate to satisfy your needs; indeed, expand your needs and demand more.” This is the worldly doctrine of today. And they believe that this is freedom. The result for the rich is isolation and suicide, for the poor, envy and murder.”
-The Brothers Karamazov

“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.”
–The Brothers Karamazov