Quotes from The Dream of a Ridiculous Man

“Killing myself was a matter of such indifference to me that I felt like waiting for a moment when it would make some difference.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, quote from The Dream of a Ridiculous Man

“وقد بلغتُ من شدّة عدم اكتراثي أن تمنيتُ في النهاية أن أقبض علي دقيقة واحدة أحسُ فيها .أن شيئاً ما يستحقُ الاهتمام”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, quote from The Dream of a Ridiculous Man

“Sorrow compressed my heart, and I felt I would die, and then . . . Well, then I woke up.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, quote from The Dream of a Ridiculous Man

“I will not and cannot believe that evil is the normal condition of mankind.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, quote from The Dream of a Ridiculous Man

“I want to suffer so that I may love.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, quote from The Dream of a Ridiculous Man

“يقولون الآن إنني ضللت الطريق, وما دُمت فعلتُ فإلي أين سأصل؟ وهذه حقيقةٌ لا غبار عليها: لقد ضللتٌ وقد تسوءٌ الأمور أكثر في المستقبل. ولاشكَ أنني سأضيعٌ أكثر من مَرّة قبل أن أهتدي إلي سواء السبيل.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, quote from The Dream of a Ridiculous Man

“... the more I learned, the more conscious did I become of the fact that I was ridiculous. So that for me my years of hard work at the university seem in the end to have existed for the sole purpose of demonstrating and proving to me, the more deeply engrossed I became in my studies, that I was an utterly absurd person.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, quote from The Dream of a Ridiculous Man

“كيف يمكن التعايش مع الفكرة التي تقول :” إن وعي الحياة فوق الحياة نفسها ، و معرفة قوانين السعادة – هي اعلى من السعادة” – ان ما يجب النضال ضده هي هذه الفكرة بالتحديد”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, quote from The Dream of a Ridiculous Man

“أصبحتُ فجأةً لا أغضبُ من الناس، بل ما عدتُ ألاحظُ وجودَهم.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, quote from The Dream of a Ridiculous Man

“I am a ridiculous man. They call me a madman now. That would be a distinct rise in my social position were it not that they still regard me as being as ridiculous as ever.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, quote from The Dream of a Ridiculous Man

“All of a sudden I became aware of a little star in one of those patches and I began looking at it intently. That was because the little star gave me an idea: I made up my mind to kill myself that night. I had made up my mind to kill myself already two months before and, poor as I am, I bought myself an excellent revolver and loaded it the same day. But two months had elapsed and it was still lying in the drawer. I was so utterly indifferent to everything that I was anxious to wait for the moment when I would not be so indifferent and then kill myself. Why -- I don't know.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, quote from The Dream of a Ridiculous Man

“And yet how simple it is: in one day, in one hour everything could be arranged at once! The chief thing is to love others like yourself, that’s the chief thing, and that’s everything; nothing else is wanted — you will find out at once how to arrange it all.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, quote from The Dream of a Ridiculous Man

“لقد تعلموا الكذب و أحبوه و عرفوا مواطن الجمال فيه ،ربما بدأ الأمر بريئاً على سبيل المزاح أو الغنج و الدعابة و اللعب . و حقيقة الأمر أن االبداية كانت ذرة ، و أن ذرة الكذب تلك تسربت الى قلوبهم و أعجبتهم !”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, quote from The Dream of a Ridiculous Man

“I suddenly felt that it was all the same to me whether the world existed or whether there had never been anything at all: I began to feel with all my being that there was nothing existing. At first I fancied that many things had existed in the past, but afterwards I guessed that there never had been anything in the past either, but that it had only seemed so for some reason. Little by little I guessed that there would be nothing in the future either. Then I left off being angry with people and almost ceased to notice them. Indeed this showed itself even in the pettiest trifles: I used, for instance, to knock against people in the street. And not so much from being lost in thought: what had I to think about? I had almost given up thinking by that time; nothing mattered to me. If at least I had solved my problems! Oh, I had not settled one of them, and how many there were! But I gave up caring about anything, and all the problems disappeared.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, quote from The Dream of a Ridiculous Man

“On our earth we can only love sincerely with suffering and through suffering. We do not know how to love any other way and know no other love. I want to suffer so that I can love. I desire, I thirst in this moment to kiss, weeping tears, that very earth which I left and I do not desire or accept life on any other ! . . .”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, quote from The Dream of a Ridiculous Man

“Yes, yes, it ended in my corrupting them all! How it could
come to pass I do not know, but I remember it clearly. The
dream embraced thousands of years and left in me only a
sense of the whole. I only know that I was the cause of their
sin and downfall. Like a vile trichina, like a germ of the
plague infecting whole kingdoms, so I contaminated all this
earth, so happy and sinless before my coming. They learnt
to lie, grew fond of lying, and discovered the charm of
falsehood. Oh, at first perhaps it began innocently, with a
jest, coquetry, with amorous play, perhaps indeed with a
germ, but that germ of falsity made its way into their hearts
and pleased them. Then sensuality was soon begotten,
sensuality begot jealousy, jealousy - cruelty . . . Oh, I don't
know, I don't remember; but soon, very soon the first blood
was shed. They marvelled and were horrified, and began to
be split up and divided. They formed into unions, but it was
against one another. Reproaches, upbraidings followed.
They came to know shame, and shame brought them to
virtue. The conception of honour sprang up, and every union
began waving its flags. They began torturing animals, and
the animals withdrew from them into the forests and became
hostile to them. They began to struggle for separation, for
isolation, for individuality, for mine and thine. They began
to talk in different languages. They became acquainted with
sorrow and loved sorrow; they thirsted for suffering, and said
that truth could only be attained through suffering. Then
science appeared. As they became wicked they began talking
of brotherhood and humanitarianism, and understood those
ideas. As they became criminal, they invented justice and
drew up whole legal codes in order to observe it, and to
ensure their being kept, set up a guillotine. They hardly
remembered what they had lost, in fact refused to believe that
they had ever been happy and innocent. They even laughed
at the possibility o this happiness in the past, and called it a
dream. They could not even imagine it in definite form and
shape, but, strange and wonderful to relate, though they lost
all faith in their past happiness and called it a legend, they so
longed to be happy and innocent once more that they
succumbed to this desire like children, made an idol of it, set
up temples and worshipped their own idea, their own desire;
though at the same time they fully believed that it was
unattainable and could not be realised, yet they bowed down
to it and adored it with tears! Nevertheless, if it could have
happened that they had returned to the innocent and happy
condition which they had lost, and if someone had shown it
to them again and had asked them whether they wanted to go
back to it, they would certainly have refused. They answered
me:
"We may be deceitful, wicked and unjust, we know it and
weep over it, we grieve over it; we torment and punish
ourselves more perhaps than that merciful Judge Who will
judge us and whose Name we know not. But we have
science, and by the means of it we shall find the truth and we
shall arrive at it consciously. Knowledge is higher than
feeling, the consciousness of life is higher than life. Science
will give us wisdom, wisdom will reveal the laws, and the
knowledge of the laws of happiness is higher than
happiness.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, quote from The Dream of a Ridiculous Man

“how anxiously I yearned for those I had forsaken.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, quote from The Dream of a Ridiculous Man

“إن ما يحرك الأحلام فينا هي الرغبة وليس العقل، هو القلب وليس الرأس”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, quote from The Dream of a Ridiculous Man

“ما أصعَبَ الأمر على من يعرف الحقيقةَ وحده”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, quote from The Dream of a Ridiculous Man

“How anxiously I yearned for those I had forsake”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, quote from The Dream of a Ridiculous Man

“Feeling my own humiliation in my heart like the sharp prick of a needle.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, quote from The Dream of a Ridiculous Man

“I was overpowered by the mere sensation of that dream and it alone survived in my sorely wounded heart.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, quote from The Dream of a Ridiculous Man

“كنت أجلس طوال الليل وفي الحقيقة لم أكن أنصت إليهم. أو اسمعهم. بل لقد نسيت وجودهم. لقد اعتدت أن أجلس على المقعد إلى الطاولة طوال الليل دون أن أفعل شيئًا . أجلس فحسب ولا أفكر.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, quote from The Dream of a Ridiculous Man

“I saw the truth, I saw and I know that people can be beautiful and happy without losing the ability to live on earth. I will not and cannot believe that evil is the normal condition of people.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, quote from The Dream of a Ridiculous Man

“I am a ridiculous person. Now they call me a madman. That would be a promotion if it were not that I remain as ridiculous in their eyes as before. But now I do not resent it, they are all dear to me now, even when they laugh at me — and, indeed, it is just then that they are particularly dear to me. I could join in their laughter — not exactly at myself, but through affection for them, if I did not feel so sad as I look at them. Sad because they do not know the truth and I do know it. Oh, how hard it is to be the only one who knows the truth! But they won't understand that. No, they won't understand it.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, quote from The Dream of a Ridiculous Man

“A dream is a strange thing. Pictures appear with terrifying clarity, the minutest details engraved like pieces of jewelry, and yet we leap unawares through huge abysses of time and space. Dreams seem to be controlled by wish rather than reason, the heart rather than the head–and yet, what clever, tricky convolutions my reason sometimes makes while I’m asleep! Things quite beyond comprehension happen to reason in dreams!”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, quote from The Dream of a Ridiculous Man

“How could I alone have invented it or imagined it in my dream? Could my petty heart and fickle, trivial mind have risen to such a revelation of truth?”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, quote from The Dream of a Ridiculous Man

“When I had that idea about the gaslights in the street, I glanced at the sky. It was very dark, but I could make out torn clouds and bottomless black gaps between them. Suddenly I noticed a little star in one of those gaps. I looked at it intently. That star reminded me that I wanted to kill myself. I decided I would go through with it that very night.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, quote from The Dream of a Ridiculous Man

“من منا ﻻ يضل الطريق ومع ذلك نسير جميعًا إلى غاية واحدة أو
لنقل يسعى الجميع إلى نهاية واحدة، من الحكيم حتى آخر
مجرم حتى وإن إختلفت السبل .”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, quote from The Dream of a Ridiculous Man

“Dreams, as we all know, are very queer things: some parts are presented with appalling vividness, with details worked up with the elaborate finish of jewellery, while others one gallops through, as it were, without noticing them at all, as, for instance, through space and time. Dreams seem to be spurred on not by reason but by desire, not by the head but by the heart, and yet what complicated tricks my reason has played sometimes in dreams, what utterly incomprehensible things happen to it!”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, quote from The Dream of a Ridiculous Man

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