“In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, quote from The Grand Inquisitor
“Man is tormented by no greater anxiety than to find someone quickly to whom he can hand over that great gift of freedom with which the ill-fated creature is born.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, quote from The Grand Inquisitor
“Anyone who can appease a man's conscience can take his freedom away from him.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, quote from The Grand Inquisitor
“Without a clear perception of his reasons for living, man will never consent to live, and will rather destroy himself than tarry on earth, though he be surrounded with bread".”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, quote from The Grand Inquisitor
“Peacefully they will die, peacefully they will expire in Thy name, and beyond the grave they will find nothing but death. But we shall keep the secret, and for their happiness we shall allure them with the reward of heaven and eternity.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, quote from The Grand Inquisitor
“In place of the clear and rigid ancient law, You [oh Lord] made man decide about good and evil for himself, with no other guidance than Your example. But did it never occur to You that man would disregard Your example, even question it, as well as Your truth, when he was subjected to so fearful a burden as freedom of choice?”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, quote from The Grand Inquisitor
“That day must come when men will understand that freedom and daily bread enough to satisfy all are unthinkable and can never be had together, as men will never be able to fairly divide the two among themselves. And they will also learn that they can never be free, for they are weak, vicious, miserable nonentities born wicked and rebellious.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, quote from The Grand Inquisitor
“I want to see with my own eyes the hind lie down with the lion and the victim rise up and embrace his murderer.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, quote from The Grand Inquisitor
“But the foolish children will have to learn some day that, rebels though they be and riotous from nature, they are too weak to maintain the spirit of mutiny for any length of time.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, quote from The Grand Inquisitor
“There exists no greater or more painful anxiety for a man who has freed himself from all religious bias, than how he shall soonest find a new object or idea to worship. But man seeks to bow before that only which is recognized by the greater majority, if not by all his fellow-men, as having a right to be worshipped; whose rights are so unquestionable that men agree unanimously to bow down to it. For the chief concern of these miserable creatures is not to find and worship the idol of their own choice, but to discover that which all others will believe in, and consent to bow down to in a mass.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, quote from The Grand Inquisitor
“It is that instinctive need of having a worship in common that is the chief suffering of every man, the chief concern of mankind from the beginning of times. It is for that universality of religious worship that people destroyed each other by sword.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, quote from The Grand Inquisitor
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Born place: in Moscow, Russian Federation
Born date November 11, 1821
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“ 'There are enough people out there that will be more than willing to knock you down. There's no reason for you to do it to yourself.' ”
― T.J. Klune, quote from Bear, Otter, and the Kid
“Under the gas lamps, mist pawed at the windows of the closed shops, which became steadily shabbier nearer home. It was such a smooth ruination that he could have been walking forward through time, watching the same buildings age five years with every step, all still as a museum”
― Natasha Pulley, quote from The Watchmaker of Filigree Street
“It's mad twisted, but surviving showed me it's better to be alive wishing I was dead than dying wishing I could live forever.”
― Adam Silvera, quote from They Both Die at the End
“It was like being part of a wave of water,” she says. “A wave of spray from the ocean feels powerful, but it is only there for a moment, the sun dries the puddles and the water is gone. Then you feel maybe it never happened. That is how it was with us. The only wave that changes anything is a tsunami. You have to tear down the houses and destroy the land if you want to be sure no one will forget you.”
― Naomi Alderman, quote from The Power
“You're so lucky and you don't even know it.”
― Christina Lauren, quote from Autoboyography
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MicroserfsBookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.
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