Fyodor Dostoevsky Quotes

Other vices make their own way; this makes way for all vices. He that is a drunkard is qualified for all vice.

Of all vices, drinking is the most incompatible with greatness.

A population sodden with drink, steeped in vice, eaten up by every social and physical malady, these are the denizens of darkest England ... the submerged tenth: Is it then beyond the reach of the nine-tenths in the midst of whom they live.

Although Drunkenness be justly termed a vice which the Salvages are ignorant of, yet the benefit is very great that comes to the planters by the sale of strong liquor to the Salvages, who are much taken with the delight of it; for they will pawn their wits, to purchase the acquaintance of it.

We must preserve not only the bodies of the unemployed from destitution but also their self-respect, their self-reliance, and courage and determination.

It is my conviction that becoming economically and socially vulnerable puts you at the mercy of people surrounding you. It is as if you no longer exist as a human being and are no longer worthy of respect.

I have so great a contempt and detestation for meanness, that I could sooner make a friend of one who had committed murder, than of a person who could be capable, in any instance, of the former vice. Under meanness, I comprehend dishonesty; under dishonesty, ingratitude; under ingratitude, irreligion; and under this latter, every species of vice and immorality in human nature.

In our society it is murder, psychologically, to deprive a man of a job or an income. You are in substance saying to that man that he has no right to exist. You are in a real way depriving him of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, denying in his case the very creed of his society.

A man given to vice is always an idealist.

May the humanity that is within every human being be held precious. The vice that underlies all vices is that we are held cheap by others, and far worse, that in our innermost soul we think cheaply of ourselves.

Christianity gave Eros poison to drink; he did not die of it, certainly, but degenerated to Vice.

Fortune is an evil chain to the body, and vice to the soul.

There are more gluttons than drunkards in hell.

A nice state of affairs when a man has to indulge his vices by proxy.

O Poverty, thy thousand ills combined Sink not so deep into the generous mind, As the contempt and laughter of mankind.

Some of the best people that ever lived have been as destitute as I am; and if you are a Christian, you ought not to consider poverty a crime.

Pride is the king of vices...it is the first of the pallbearers of the soul...other vices destroy only their opposite virtues, as wantonness destroys chastity; greed destroys temperance; anger destroys gentleness; but pride destroys all virtues.

The life even of a just man is a round of petty frauds; that of a knave a series of greater. We degrade life by our follies and vices, and then complain that the unhappiness which is only their accompaniment is inherent in the constitution of things.

Aspiring beggary is wretchedness itself.

Of all vices take heed of drunkenness; other vices are but fruits of disordered affections--this disorders, nay, banishes reason; other vices but impair the soul--this demolishes her two chief faculties, the understanding and the will; other vices make their own way--this makes way for all vices; he that is a drunkard is qualified for all vice.

It is but a step from companionship to slavery when one associates with vice.

Like Daniel she enteres the lions' den, but lacking Daniel's pure and unblemished soul, Ada is spiced with the flavors of vice that make for a tasty meal. Pure and unblemished souls must taste very bland, with an aftertaste of bitterness.

Give me hunger, pain and want, Shut me out with shame and failure From your doors of gold and fame, Give me your shabbiest, weariest hunger! But leave me a little love.

Poverty is no vice, but an inconvenience.

When I pick up a person from the street, hungry, I give him a plate of rice, a piece of bread. But a person who is shut out, who feels unwanted, unloved, terrified, the person who has been thrown out of society - that spiritual poverty is much harder to overcome. And abortion, which often follows from contraception, brings a people to be spiritually poor, and that is the worst poverty and the most difficult to overcome.