A Quote by Fyodor Dostoevsky

There is nothing in the world more difficult than candor, and nothing easier than flattery. If there is a hundredth of a fraction of a false note to candor, it immediately produces dissonance, and as a result, exposure. But in flattery, even if everything is false down to the last note, it is still pleasant, and people will listen not without pleasure; with coarse pleasure, perhaps, but pleasure nevertheless.

Fyodor Dostoevsky

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Candor Coarse Difficult Dissonance Down Easier Even Everything Exposure False Flattery Fraction Immediately Last Listen More Nevertheless Note Nothing People Perhaps Pleasant Pleasure Produces Result Still Than Will Without World

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Fyodor Dostoevsky
Russian - Novelist
November 11, 1821 - February 9, 1881

At the heart of our desires is eternal happiness without the slightest hint of misery. You could say that we are pleasure seekers; however, seeking pleasure from the objects of our five senses produces fleeting moments of pleasure whereas, pleasure of one's self, a soul, is eternal and ever-increasing pleasure.

Terry Cole-Whittaker

When I talk about the pleasure principle, I don't say there is only one kind of pleasure, there are many kinds of pleasure. Some pleasure is difficult. It should be for the reader as well as the writer. But it has to be pleasure.

Martin Amis

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

Fyodor Dostoevsky

There can hardly, I believe, be imagined a more desirable pleasure than that of praise unmixed with any possibility of flattery.

Richard Steele

Nothing is more silly than the pleasure some people take in "speaking their minds." A man of this make will say a rude thing for the mere pleasure of saying it, when an opposite behavior, full as innocent, might have preserved his friend, or made his fortune.

Richard Steele

For pain is perhaps but a violent pleasure? Who could determine the point where pleasure becomes pain, where pain is still a pleasure? Is not the utmost brightness of the ideal world soothing to us, while the lightest shadows of the physical world annoy?

Honore de Balzac

The flattery of posterity is not worth much more than contemporary flattery, which is worth nothing.

Jorge Luis Borges

It would be better if there were nothing. Since there is more pain than pleasure on earth, every satisfaction is only transitory, creating new desires and new distresses, and the agony of the devoured animal is always far greater than the pleasure of the devourer

Arthur Schopenhauer

I think what the Church should ideally do, and does appear to do in the context of straight relationships, is to support people in crossing from the easier pleasure of momentary carnal satisfaction, into the more difficult pleasure of love and family and relationship.

Andrew Solomon

There is probably no pleasure equal to the pleasure of climbing a dangerous Alp; but it is a pleasure which is confined strictly to people who can find pleasure in it.

Mark Twain

Succeed in not fearing the lion, and the lion will fear YOU. Say to suffering, 'I will that you shall become a pleasure,' and it will prove to be such-- and even more than a pleasure, it will be a blessing.

Eliphas Levi

Such is the power of imagination, that even a chimerical pleasure in expectation affects us more than a solid pleasure in possession.

Henry Home, Lord Kames

Ignorance of true pleasure more frequently than temptation to that which is false, leads to vice.

Ann Radcliffe

There was lots of pleasure in writing The Flamethrowers. Then again, what is pleasure? Some pleasure is easy and other kinds are never quite felt, existing only as the residue of hard work, or more as satisfaction than thrill.

Rachel Kushner

Happiness is not mere pleasure, not the outcome of wealth. It is the result of active work rather than passive enjoyment of pleasure.

Robert Baden-Powell

Bob Dylan continues to release odd and unsettling records, and to do odd and unsettling things on stage. So the term 'still' seems meaningless to me. But the real answer is simple: I listen to Bob Dylan for pleasure more than I listen to anyone else for pleasure.

Greil Marcus

A Quote by Fyodor Dostoevsky

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