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The Idiot quotes

7 quotes from The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky, each verified verbatim against the text and located in the book.

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Fyodor Dostoevsky

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Towards the end of November, during a thaw, at nine o'clock one morning, a train on the Warsaw and Petersburg railway was approaching the latter city at full speed.
— Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Idiot (1869), English text credited to Eva Martin, Part I, Chapter I
Yes—I saw an execution in France—at Lyons. Schneider took me over with him to see it.
— Prince Myshkin (dialogue) · Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Idiot (1869), English text credited to Eva Martin, Part I, Chapter II
It is difficult to judge when such beauty is concerned. I have not prepared my judgment. Beauty is a riddle.
— Prince Myshkin (dialogue) · Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Idiot (1869), English text credited to Eva Martin, Part I, Chapter VII
Why, a man's faith might be ruined by looking at that picture!
— Prince Myshkin (dialogue) · Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Idiot (1869), English text credited to Eva Martin, Part II, Chapter IV
Is it true, prince, that you once declared that 'beauty would save the world'? Great Heaven! The prince says that beauty saves the world!
— Ippolit (dialogue) · Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Idiot (1869), English text credited to Eva Martin, Part III, Chapter V
Compassion is the chief law of human existence.
— Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Idiot (1869), English text credited to Eva Martin, Part II, Chapter V
All this continental life, all this Europe of yours, and all the trash about 'going abroad' is simply foolery, and it is mere foolery on our part to come.
— Lizaveta Prokofyevna Epanchina (dialogue) · Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Idiot (1869), English text credited to Eva Martin, Part IV, Chapter XII

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