Poor Folk

by Fyodor Dostoevsky

One ought not to grow old holding a lock of Cupid's hair in one's hand.

whenever I try to describe anything with more than ordinary distinctness, I fall into the mistake of talking sheer rubbish.

Day succeeded day, and each day was like the last one.

Literature is a sort of picture—a sort of picture or mirror.

Yes, all that you have done to give me pleasure has become converted into a source of grief, and left behind it only useless regret.

Novels are rubbish, and written for fools and for the idle.

You will but spoil your life if you constantly lament another person's sorrow.

Once a man has lost his self-respect, and has decided to abjure his better qualities and human dignity, he falls headlong, and cannot choose but do so.

Rich folk dislike hearing poor people complain of their poverty.

Exaggeration I abhor, with whims I have nothing to do, and of quotation I am guiltless.

To what depths of humility can poverty reduce a man!

I had always been accustomed to comport myself as though no such person as I existed.

I am living, as it were, in a mist.