40+ Crime and Punishment Quotes from the Classic Fiction

Crime and Punishment is a novel that blends the intensity of crime with the contemplation of punishment. So you’re in for both emotional and intellectual adventure as you witness the journey of the tormented protagonist, Raskolnikov through guilt, redemption, and the pursuit of justice. 

Through the pages of the novel, the author, Fyodor Dostoevsky paints a vivid portrait of a society teetering on the edge, challenging us to reflect on the consequences of our choices.

Crime and Punishment Quotes

Here are the 40+ quotes collection from the timeless fiction “Crime and Punishment” by Fyodor Dostoevsky:

1. “Pain and suffering are always inevitable for a large intelligence and a deep heart.”

2. “To go wrong in one’s own way is better than to go right in someone else’s.” 

3. “It takes something more than intelligence to act intelligently.”

4. “Crime? What crime?… My killing a loathsome, harmful louse, a filthy old moneylender woman… is that a crime?”

5. “Power is given only to those who dare to lower themselves and pick it up. Only one thing matters, one thing; to be able to dare!” 

6. “Man grows used to everything, the scoundrel!” 

7. “I did not bow down to you, I bowed down to all the suffering of humanity.” 

8. “But to live is still better, always better, than to die.” 

9. “It’s just that I’d like to know if you’re quite sure that you yourself are not a louse. Perhaps I am more than you think.” 

10. “The darker the night, the brighter the stars, the deeper the grief, the closer is God!” 

11. “I wanted to murder for my own sake, for myself alone!”

12. “What is hell? I maintain that it is the suffering of being unable to love.” 

13. “To suffer greatly for a worthy aim is sweeter than the sweetest pleasure.” 

14. “Without a firm faith in his own mind, no one can endure such terrible suffering.” 

15. “When reason fails, the devil helps!” 

16. “It’s not God that I don’t accept, Alyosha, only I most respectfully return him the ticket.” 

17. “You’re ill, and so imagination carries you away.” 

18. “Man has the right to live by his own law—to live in the way that he wills to do so.”

19. “The darker the passions, the more ways to kill without detection.” 

20. “He had a feeling of extreme humiliation and shame. He had never experienced anything like it before.” 

21. “I simply did not want to be at the mercy of someone else’s will.” 

22. “For every man who lives without love, the world remains unknown to him.”

23. “Man is stupid, you know, phenomenally stupid; or rather he is not at all stupid, but he is so ungrateful that you could not find another like him in all creation.” 

24. “What’s the use of a fine house if you haven’t got a tolerable planet to put it on?” 

25. “The mystery of human existence lies not in just staying alive, but in finding something to live for.” 

26. “He who commits a crime must be prepared to face the consequences.”

27. “A man who lies to himself, and believes his own lies, becomes unable to recognize the truth, either in himself or in anyone else.”

28. “It’s not the hand that signs the laws that hold the destiny of a nation; it’s the hand that casts the ballot.” 

29. “What is the meaning of life? That was all—a simple question; one that tended to close in on one with years.” 

30. “All is in a man’s hands and he lets it all slip from cowardice, that’s an axiom.” 

31. “Don’t let us forget that the causes of human actions are usually immeasurably more complex and varied than our subsequent explanations of them.” 

32. “Men are like that, the scoundrels. Give them but a chance and they’ll talk their way into anything.” 

33. “Happiness does not lie in happiness but in the achievement of it.” 

34. “Nothing in this world is harder than speaking the truth, nothing easier than flattery.” 

35. “I think the devil doesn’t exist, but man has created him, he has created him in his own image and likeness.” 

36. “The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons.” 

37. “The old woman was merely a sickness, but not really a person, and you killed her in order to help yourself.” 

38. “It is better to be unhappy and know the worst than to be happy in a fool’s paradise.” 

39. “To live without hope is to cease to live.” 

40. “Fear is the parent of cruelty.” 

41. “The greatest happiness is to know the source of unhappiness.” 

42. “The soul is healed by being with children.” 

43. “To step over one’s own shadow, a man must have light behind him.” 

44. “We sometimes encounter people, even perfect strangers, who begin to interest us at first sight, somehow suddenly, all at once, before a word has been spoken.” 

Last Words from Crime and Punishment Quotes

And so, we have come to the end of the Crime and punishment quotes! Hope you gleaned one or two. This timeless fiction challenges us to examine our moral compasses and invites us to question the boundaries of justice and forgiveness. Through the journey of Raskolnikov, we have also witnessed the harsh effects of guilt and the transformative nature of redemption.