To achieve perfection, one must first begin by not understanding many things! And if we understand too quickly, we may not understand well.
~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

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

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A man who lies to himself, and believes his own lies, becomes unable to recognize truth, either in himself or in anyone else, and he ends up losing respect for himself and for others.
~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

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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.
~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

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I think the devil doesn’t exist, but man has created him, he has created him in his own image and likeness.
~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

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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.
~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

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Avoid falsehood, every kind of falsehood, especially falseness to yourself. Watch over your own deceitfulness and look into it every hour, every minute.
~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

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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.
~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

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It wasn’t the New World that mattered … Columbus died almost without seeing it; and not really knowing what he had discovered. It’s life that matters, nothing but life — the process of discovering, the everlasting and perpetual process, not the discovery itself, at all.
~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

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The more I detest men individually the more ardent
becomes my love for humanity.
~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

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