Pain 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.
Fyodor DostoevskyRead
Love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing compared with love in dreams.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Real love requires effort and sacrifice, contrasting with the idealized version of love that exists in our dreams.
Dostoevsky highlights the stark difference between the romanticized notion of love and its true form, which often involves struggle and pain. While love in our dreams is idyllic and free from conflict, love in reality demands commitment, hard work, and resilience, often exposing us to harsh truths and difficult situations.
Themes
LoveActionDreamsCommitmentSacrifice
In practice
Example use cases
During a wedding speech, to emphasize the challenges of marriage.
More from Fyodor Dostoevsky
All quotes βWhat if, when this fog scatters and flies upward, the whole rotten, slimey city goes with it, rises with the fog and vanishes like smoke.
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Love the animals: God has given them the rudiments of thought and joy untroubled.
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Love the animals, love the plants, love everything. If you love everything, you will perceive the divine mystery in things. Once you perceive it, you will begin to comprehend it better every day. And you will come at last to love the whole world with an all-embracing love.
Fyodor DostoevskyRead
But do you understand, I cry to him, do you understand that if you have the guillotine in the forefront, and with such glee, it's for the sole reason that cutting heads off is the easiest thing, and having an idea is difficult!
Fyodor DostoevskyRead
...to return to their 'native soil,' as they say, to the bosom, so to speak, of their mother earth, like frightened children, yearning to fall asleep on the withered bosom of their decrepit mother, and to sleep there for ever, only to escape the horrors that terrify them.
Fyodor DostoevskyRead
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Here's my advice to you: don't marry until you can tell yourself that you've done all you could, and until you've stopped loving the women you've chosen, until you see her clearly, otherwise you'll be cruelly and irremediably mistaken. Marry when you're old and good for nothing...Otherwise all that's good and lofty in you will be lost.
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