Born: November 11, 1821 | Died: February 9, 1881
Nationality: Russian | Genre: Classic Fiction, Psychological Fiction, Philosophical Fiction
Fyodor Dostoevsky was a pioneering Russian novelist whose work dives deep into conscience, guilt, free will, and faith. In novels like Crime and Punishment, Notes from Underground, The Idiot, Demons, and The Brothers Karamazov, he turns crime, poverty, and family conflict into intense moral dramas. His characters wrestle with inner voices and clashing ideas, making his books feel like living debates about what it means to be good, free, and responsible.
His life fed this intensity. Arrested in 1849 for his involvement with a reformist circle, he faced a mock execution and years of Siberian imprisonment and exile—experiences that reshaped his outlook on suffering, compassion, and belief. Later, amid epilepsy, money troubles, and a restless career as a journalist and novelist, he produced some of literature’s most searching pages. Dostoevsky’s urgent style and psychological depth influenced writers and thinkers across the world, and his questions about faith, justice, and the human heart still feel startlingly current.
There is nothing in the world more difficult than candor, and nothing easier than flattery.
fromCrime and PunishmentbyIf he has a conscience he will suffer for his mistake. That will be his punishment—as well as the prison.
fromCrime and PunishmentbyHe knelt down in the middle of the square and bowed to the earth, and kissed that filthy earth with bliss and rapture.
fromCrime and PunishmentbyPain and suffering are always inevitable for a large intelligence and a deep heart. The really great men must, I think, have great sadness on earth.
fromCrime and PunishmentbyHe suddenly recalled Sonia’s words, ‘Go to the cross-roads, bow down to the people, kiss the earth… and say aloud to the whole world, I am a murderer.’ … It came over him like a fit… He fell to the earth on the spot…. He knelt down… and kissed that filthy earth with bliss and rapture.
fromCrime and PunishmentbyI divined then, Sonia, that power is only vouchsafed to the man who dares to stoop and pick it up… There is only one thing, one thing needful: one has only to dare! … I— I wanted to have the daring… and I killed her. I only wanted to have the daring, Sonia! That was the whole cause of it!
fromCrime and PunishmentbyEternity, you know, is a room as small as a bathhouse… and rather stuffy.
fromCrime and PunishmentbyThat is the beginning of a new story, the story of the gradual renewal of a man, of his gradual regeneration…
fromCrime and PunishmentbyThey were both pale and thin; but those sick pale faces were bright with the dawn of a new future, of a full resurrection into a new life. They were renewed by love; that is, the heart of each held infinite sources of life for the heart of the other.
fromCrime and Punishmentby