Quotes from The House of the Dead

“Man is a creature that can get accustomed to anything, and I think that is the best definition of him.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, quote from The House of the Dead

“Whoever has experienced the power and the unrestrained ability to humiliate another human being automatically loses his own sensations. Tyranny is a habit, it has its own organic life, it develops finally into a disease. The habit can kill and coarsen the very best man or woman to the level of a beast. Blood and power intoxicate ... the return of the human dignity, repentance and regeneration becomes almost impossible.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, quote from The House of the Dead

“Bad people are to be found everywhere, but even among the worst there may be something good.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, quote from The House of the Dead

“Often a man endures for several years, submits and suffers the cruellest punishments, and then suddenly breaks out over some minute trifle, almost nothing at all.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, quote from The House of the Dead

“I may be mistaken but it seems to me that a man may be judged by his laugh, and that if at first encounter you like the laugh of a person completely unknown to you, you may say with assurance that he is good.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, quote from The House of the Dead

“Very often among a certain highly intelligent type of people, quite paradoxical ideas will establish themselves. But they have suffered so much in their lives for these ideas, and have paid so high a price for them that it becomes very painful, indeed almost impossible, for them to part with them.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, quote from The House of the Dead

“No man lives, can live, without having some object in view, and making efforts to attain that object. But when object there is none, and hope is entirely fled, anguish often turns a man into a monster.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, quote from The House of the Dead

“Generally speaking, our prisoners were capable of loving animals, and if they had been allowed they would have delighted to rear large numbers of domestic animals and birds in the prison. And I wonder what other activity could better have softened and refined their harsh and brutal natures than this. But it was not allowed. Neither the regulations nor the nature of the prison made it possible.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, quote from The House of the Dead

“Reality is infinitely diverse, compared with even the subtlest conclusions of abstract thought, and does not allow of clear-cut and sweeping distinctions. Reality resists classification.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, quote from The House of the Dead

“In short, the right given to one man to inflict corporal punishment on another is one of the ulcers of society, one of the most powerful destructive agents of every germ and every budding attempt at civilization, the fundamental cause of its certain and irretrievable destruction.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, quote from The House of the Dead

“It is acknowledged that neither convict prisons, nor the hulks, nor any system of hard labour ever cured a criminal. These forms of chastisement only punish him and reassure society against the offences he might commit. Confinement, regulation, and excessive work have no effect but to develop with these men profound hatred, a thirst for forbidden enjoyment, and frightful recalcitrations.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, quote from The House of the Dead

“Fierce and solitary he awaited death, mistrustful and hostile to all”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, quote from The House of the Dead

“Man cannot exist without work, without legal, natural property. Depart from these conditions, and he becomes perverted and changed into a wild beast.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, quote from The House of the Dead

“...everything defiled and degraded. What cannot man live through! Man is a creature that can get accustomed to anything, and I think that is the best definition of him.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, quote from The House of the Dead

“ولكن أنواع العقوبات قليلة، في حين أن أنواع الجرائم تعد بالألوف، فهناك من أنواع الجرائم بقدر ما هنالك من أنواع الطباع”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, quote from The House of the Dead

“I once saw a convict who had been twenty years in prison and was being released take leave of his fellow prisoners. There were men who remembered his first coming into prison, when he was young, careless, heedless of his crime and his punishment. He went out a grey-headed, elderly man, with a sad sullen face. He walked in silence through our six barrack-rooms. As he entered each room he prayed to the ikons, and then bowing low to his fellow prisoners he asked them not to remember evil against him.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, quote from The House of the Dead

“Tyranny is a habit which may be developed until at last it becomes a disease. I declare that the noblest nature can become so hardened and bestial that nothing distinguishes it from that of a wild animal. Blood and power intoxicate; they help to develop callousness and debauchery. The mind then becomes capable of the most abnormal cruelty, which it regards pleasure; the man and the citizen are swallowed up in the tyrant; and the return to human dignity, repentance, moral resurrection, becomes almost impossible.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, quote from The House of the Dead

“No man lives, or can live, without having some object in view, and without making efforts to attain that object. But when there is no such object and hope is entirely fled, anguish often turns a man into a monster.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, quote from The House of the Dead

“I remember that he was always trying to expound to me in his broken Russian some special system of astronomy he had invented. I was told that he had once published it, but the learned world had only laughed at him. I think his wits were a little deranged.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, quote from The House of the Dead

“Now take a man who is sensitive, cultured, and of delicate conscience. What he feels kills him more surely than the material punishment. The judgement which he himself pronounces on his crime is more pitiless than that of the most severe tribunal, the most Draconian law. He lives side by side with another convict, who has not once during all his time in prison reflected on the murder he is expiating. He may even consider himself innocent. Are there not also poor devils who commit crimes in order to be sent to hard labour, and thus escape from a freedom which is much more painful than confinement?”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, quote from The House of the Dead

“Here is the world to which I am condemned, in which, despite myself, I must somehow live.' I said.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, quote from The House of the Dead

“إن العقل لا سلطان له على أناس مثل "بتروف" إلا بمقدار ما تكون نفوسهم خالية من الرغبة في شيء من الأشياء، حتى إذا شبت في نفوسهم هذه الرغبة لم تحل بينهم وبين تحقيق إرادتهم أي عقبات”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, quote from The House of the Dead

“Education has nothing whatever to do with moral deterioration; and if one must admit that it develops a resolute spirit among the people, that is far from being a defect.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, quote from The House of the Dead

“Confinement, regulation, and excessive work have no effect but to develop in these men profound hatred, a thirst for forbidden enjoyment, and frightful recalcitration.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, quote from The House of the Dead

“Adeseori, un om rabda in tacere ani de-a randul, indura resemnat cele mai crunte pedepse, dar deodata il vezi rabufnind dintr-o nimica toata, pentru te miri ce lucru neinsemnat, incat ramai uluit si te intrebi de mai e in toate mintile; caci ceea ce face el atunci pare de-a dreptul o nebunie.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, quote from The House of the Dead

“the punishment inflicted for these peccadilloes.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, quote from The House of the Dead

“looked upon as misfortunes, which must be”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, quote from The House of the Dead

“Belki yanılıyorum ama düşünceme göre, herhangi bir kimse hakkında, sadece gülüşüne bakarak hüküm vermek kabildir. Onun için hiç tanımadığınız birinin gülüşü daha karşılaşmanızda hoşunuza giderse, karşınızdakinin iyi bir adam olduğundan tereddüt etmeyiniz.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, quote from The House of the Dead

“... dupa ce a trecut o linie interzisa pentru el, incepe sa nu i se mai para nimic sfant pe lume, de parca ceva-l impinge sa sara peste orice fel de legalitate si putere si sa se delecteze cu libertatea cea mai neinfranata ...”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, quote from The House of the Dead

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Popular quotes

“Aquella noche tuve un sueño agitado. Al despertarme casi me asusté, en la madrugada, no recordé inmediatamente los hechos del día anterior y hasta que tuve plena conciencia miré con sorpresa la confusa realidad que me rodeaba. Pues no nos despertamos de golpe, sino en un complejo y paulatino proceso en que vamos reconociendo el mundo originario como quien viene de un larguísimo viaje por continentes lejanos e imprecisos, y en que después de siglos de existencia oscura hemos perdido la memoria de nuestra existencia anterior, y sólo recordamos de ella fragmentos incoherentes. Y después de un tiempo inconmensurable, la luz del día empieza tenuemente a iluminar las salidas de aquellos laberintos angustiosos y entonces corremos con ansiedad hacia el mundo diurno. Y llegamos al borde del sueño como náufragos exhaustos que logran alcanzar la playa después de una larga lucha con la tempestad. Y allí, semiinconsicnetes todavía, pero ya tranquilizándonos poco a poco, empezamos a reconocer con gratitud algunos de los atributos del mundo cotidiano, el tranquilo y confortable universo de la civilización.”
― Ernesto Sabato, quote from On Heroes and Tombs

“The path to accepting your sexuality has to start somewhere. For those identify as heterosexual, the childhood bliss of an early crush is typically encouraged and praised. Milestones such as your first date and the prom are celebrated by parents and friends.
But when you’re anything other than straight, it’s more complicated; your growth gets shrouded and stunted. That’s why a lot of queer people, when they fall in love and get into a relationship for the first time, revert to a kind of prepubescent puppy love: spontaneous, impulsive, obsessive, and ecstatic. I’ve heard many people express annoyance at friends who “just came out and it’s totally cool and whatever, but do they have to talk about it all the time?” My answer to that is “Yes. Yes, they do. Don’t you remember puppy love? Well, imagine if you had to hide it for twenty years. So yeah, if they wanna gush about it, let them gush. There’s a first time for everything.”
― Hannah Hart, quote from Buffering: Unshared Tales of a Life Fully Loaded

“All moments, past, present and future, always have existed, always will exist.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, quote from Slaughterhouse-five: The Children's Crusade, A Duty-dance with Death

“Someone came in all Starfleet badges today. Not on my shift, sadly.'

'Fascist,' Leon had said. 'Why are you so prejudiced against nerds?'

'Please,' Billy said. 'That would be a bit self-hating, wouldn't it?'

'Yeah, but you pass. You're like, you're in deep cover,' Leon said. 'You can sneak out of the nerd ghetto and hide the badge and bring back food and clothes and word of the outside world.”
― China Miéville, quote from Kraken

“I like you.”

“I like you, too.”

“I’ve liked you since the morning you ran into me.”

I giggle and try to shove him away, but he uses the motion to pull us closer. “You have not,” I say.

“I have,” he whispers, and now his lips brush against my cheek. “I remember thinking, ‘Nice job, dickhead. Add another girl to the list of people who hate you.’”

“I don’t hate you. I’ve never hated you.”

“Now, that’s reassuring,” he says, but I can hear the smile in his voice. He inhales along my cheekbone, and sparks flare through my abdomen. “You should write for Hallmark.”

“All my future love letters will start with ‘To whom it may concern.’”

“Are you going to send me future love letters?”

I flush, and I’m sure he can see it. Feel it.”
― Brigid Kemmerer, quote from Letters to the Lost

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BookQuoters 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.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.