Fyodor Dostoevsky

1821–1881 · Russian novelist & essayist

Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky was a Russian novelist, short-story writer and journalist whose fiction pushed into the political, social and spiritual turmoil of nineteenth-century Russia. His major novels — Crime and Punishment, The Idiot, Demons, The Adolescent and The Brothers Karamazov — are among the most influential in world literature, and his novella Notes from Underground is often called one of the first works of existentialist writing. Children recur throughout his work as a moral touchstone, which is part of why lines like this one travel so easily under his name.

Traced to source

8 quotes we’ve traced to Fyodor Dostoevsky

Not actually Fyodor Dostoevsky

Often misattributed to Fyodor Dostoevsky

Famous lines widely pinned on Fyodor Dostoevsky that we’ve traced to someone else.

Did they really say it?

Thought Fyodor Dostoevsky said something else?

Type a quote you think Fyodor Dostoevsky said — we’ll tell you what we know, or point you to the best sources.