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
originality and a feeling of one's own dignity are achieved only through work and struggle.
Interpretation
True originality and self-respect come from hard work and overcoming challenges.
This quote by Fyodor Dostoevsky emphasizes that originality and a strong sense of self-worth are not simply given but are earned through effort and the difficulties one faces. It highlights the value of perseverance, suggesting that the struggles we endure shape our identity and contribute to our true creative expression.
In practice
During a graduation speech about the importance of hard work.
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.
What if, when this fog scatters and flies upward, the whole rotten, slimey city goes with it, rises with the fog and vanishes like smoke.
Love the animals: God has given them the rudiments of thought and joy untroubled.
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.
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!
...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.
In the end the great truth will have been learned that the quest is greater than what is sought, the effort finer that the prize (or rather, that the effort is the prize), the victory cheap and hollow were it not for the rigor of the game.
Every human being is entitled to courtesy and consideration. Constructive criticism is not only to be expected but sought.
Perhaps some day I'll crawl back home, beaten, defeated. But not as long as I can make stories out of my heartbreak, beauty out of sorrow.
When one does not have what one wants, one must want what one has.
The young man who has not wept is a savage, and the older man who will not laugh is a fool.
The power of generalizing ideas, of drawing comprehensive conclusions from individual observations, is the only acquirement, for an immortal being, that really deserves the name of knowledge.
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