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“I am a sick man... I am a spiteful man. I am an unpleasant man. I think my liver is diseased. However, I don't know beans about my disease, and I am not sure what is bothering me. I don't treat it and never have, though I respect medicine and doctors. Besides, I am extremely superstitious, let's say sufficiently so to respect medicine. (I am educated enough not to be superstitious, but I am.) No, I refuse to treat it out of spite. You probably will not understand that. Well, but I understand it. Of course I can't explain to you just whom I am annoying in this case by my spite. I am perfectly well aware that I cannot "get even" with the doctors by not consulting them. I know better than anyone that I thereby injure only myself and no one else. But still, if I don't treat it, its is out of spite. My liver is bad, well then-- let it get even worse!”
Source: Notes from Underground, White Nights, The Dream of a Ridiculous Man, and Selections from The House of the Dead
“You see, gentlemen, reason is an excellent thing, there's no disputing that, but reason is nothing but reason and satisfies only the rational side of man's nature, while will is a manifestation of the whole life, that is, of the whole human life including reason and all the impulses. And although our life, in this manifestation of it, is often worthless, yet it is life and not simply extracting square roots. Here I, for instance, quite naturally want to live, in order to satisfy all my capacities for life, and not simply my capacity for reasoning, that is, not simply one twentieth of my capacity for life. What does reason know? Reason only knows what it has succeeded in learning (some things, perhaps, it will never learn; this is a poor comfort, but why not say so frankly?) and human nature acts as a whole, with everything that is in it, consciously or unconsciously, and, even if it goes wrong, it lives.”
Source: Notes from Underground, White Nights, The Dream of a Ridiculous Man, and Selections from The House of the Dead
“…but it is in despair that the most burning pleasures occur, especially when one is all too highly conscious of the hopelessness of one’s position.”
Source: Notes from Underground, White Nights, The Dream of a Ridiculous Man, and Selections from The House of the Dead
“…but it is in despair that the most burning pleasures occur…”
Source: Notes from Underground, White Nights, The Dream of a Ridiculous Man, and Selections from The House of the Dead
“It ended by my almost believing (perhaps actually believing) that this was perhaps my normal condition. But at first, in the beginning, what agonies I endured in that struggle! I did not believe it was the same with other people, and all my life I hid this fact about myself as a secret. I was ashamed (even now, perhaps, I am ashamed): I got to the point of feeling a sort of secret abnormal, despicable enjoyment in returning home to my corner on some disgusting Petersburg night, acutely conscious that that day I had committed a loathsome action again, that what was done could never be undone, and secretly, inwardly gnawing, gnawing at myself for it, tearing and consuming myself till at last the bitterness turned into a sort of shameful accursed sweetness, and at last—into positive real enjoyment! Yes, into enjoyment, into enjoyment! I insist upon that. I have spoken of this because I keep wanting to know for a fact whether other people feel such enjoyment? I will explain; the enjoyment was just from the too intense consciousness of one’s own degradation; it was from feeling oneself that one had reached the last barrier, that it was horrible, but that it could not be otherwise; that there was no escape for you; that you never could become a different man; that even if time and faith were still left you to change into something different you would most likely not wish to change; or if you did wish to, even then you would do nothing; because perhaps in reality there was nothing for you to change into.
And the worst of it was, and the root of it all, that it was all in accord with the normal fundamental laws of over-acute consciousness, and with the inertia that was the direct result of those laws, and that consequently one was not only unable to change but could do absolutely nothing. Thus it would follow, as the result of acute consciousness, that one is not to blame in being a scoundrel; as though that were any consolation to the scoundrel once he has come to realise that he actually is a scoundrel.”
Source: Notes from Underground, White Nights, The Dream of a Ridiculous Man, and Selections from The House of the Dead
“Merciful Heavens! but what do I care for the laws of nature and arithmetic, when, for some reason I dislike those laws and the fact that twice two makes four? Of course I cannot break through the wall by battering my head against it if I really have not the strength to knock it down, but I am not going to be reconciled to it simply because it is a stone wall and I have not the strength.”
Source: Notes from Underground, White Nights, The Dream of a Ridiculous Man, and Selections from The House of the Dead
“May it not be that he loves chaos and destruction (there can be no disputing that he does sometimes love it) because he is instinctively afraid of attaining his object and completing the edifice he is constructing? Who knows, perhaps he only loves that edifice from a distance, and is by no means in love with it at close quarters; perhaps he only loves building it and does not want to live in it, but will leave it, when completed...”
Source: Notes from Underground, White Nights, The Dream of a Ridiculous Man, and Selections from The House of the Dead
“Here I, for instance, quite naturally want to live, in order to satisfy all my capacities for life, and not simply my capacity for reasoning, that is, not simply one twentieth of my capacity for life. What does reason know? Reason only knows what it has succeeded in learning (some things, perhaps, it will never learn; this is a poor comfort, but why not say so frankly?) and human nature acts as a whole, with everything that is in it, consciously or unconsciously, and, even it if goes wrong, it lives.”
Source: Notes from Underground, White Nights, The Dream of a Ridiculous Man, and Selections from The House of the Dead
“Why I would sell the whole world for a single kopek, just so that nobody would bother me. Should the world go to hell, or should I go without my tea now? I'll say let the world go to hell so long as I can have my tea whenever I want it.”
Source: Notes from Underground, White Nights, The Dream of a Ridiculous Man, and Selections from The House of the Dead
“I was cursing and swearing at you because of that address, I hated you already because of the lies I had told you. Because I only like playing with words, only dreaming, but, do you know, what I really want is that you should all go to hell. That is what I want. I want peace; yes, I'd sell the whole world for a farthing, straight off, so long as I was left in peace. Is the world to go to pot, or am I to go without my tea? I say that the world may go to pot for me so long as I always get my tea.”
Source: Notes from Underground, White Nights, The Dream of a Ridiculous Man, and Selections from The House of the Dead
“For though your mind is active enough, your heart is darkened with corruption, and without a pure heart there can be no full or genuine sensibility.”
Source: Notes from Underground, White Nights, The Dream of a Ridiculous Man, and Selections from The House of the Dead
“What a man need is simply and solely independence volition, whatever that independence may cost and wherever it may lead.”
Source: Notes from Underground, White Nights, The Dream of a Ridiculous Man, and Selections from The House of the Dead
“In the first place I spent most of my time at home, reading. I tried to stifle all that was continually seething within me by means of external impressions. And the only external means I had was reading. Reading, of course, was a great help--exciting me, giving me pleasure and pain. But at times it bored me fearfully. One longed for movement in spite of everything, and I plunged all at once into dark, underground, loathsome vice of the pettiest kind. My wretched passions were acute, smarting, from my continual, sickly irritability I had hysterical impulses, with tears and convulsions. I had no resource except reading, that is, there was nothing in my surroundings which I could respect and which attracted me. I was overwhelmed with depression, too; I had an hysterical craving for incongruity and for contrast, and so I took to vice. I have not said all this to justify myself .... But, no! I am lying. I did want to justify myself. I make that little observation for my own benefit, gentlemen. I don't want to lie. I vowed to myself I would not.”
Source: Notes from Underground, White Nights, The Dream of a Ridiculous Man, and Selections from The House of the Dead
“I swear, gentlemen, that to be too conscious is an illness - a real thorough-going illness.”
Source: Notes from Underground, White Nights, The Dream of a Ridiculous Man, and Selections from The House of the Dead
“Man only likes to count his troubles; he doesn't calculate his happiness.”
Source: Notes from Underground, White Nights, The Dream of a Ridiculous Man, and Selections from The House of the Dead
“In every man's memories there are such things as he will reveal not to everyone, perhaps only to friends. There are also such as he will reveal not even to friends, but only to himself, and that in secret. Then, finally, there are such as a man is afraid to reveal even to himself, and every decent man will have accumulated quite a few things of this sort. That is, one might even say: the more decent a man is, the more of them he will have.”
Source: Notes from Underground, White Nights, The Dream of a Ridiculous Man, and Selections from The House of the Dead
“The only gain of civilisation for mankind is the greater capacity for variety of sensations - and absolutely nothing more.”
Source: Notes from Underground, White Nights, The Dream of a Ridiculous Man, and Selections from The House of the Dead
“The poor girl ws keeping that student's letter as a precious treasure, and had run to fetch it, her only treasure, because she did not want me to go away without knowing that she, too, was honestly and genuinely loved; that she, too, was addressed respectfully. No doubt that letter was destined to lie in her box and lead to nothing. But none the less, I am certain that she would keep it all her life as a precious treasure, as her pride and justification, and now at such a minute she had thought of that letter and brought it with naive pride to raise herself in my eyes that I might see, that I, too, might think well of her.”
Source: Notes from Underground, White Nights, The Dream of a Ridiculous Man, and Selections from The House of the Dead
“Jam njeri i semure... Jam edhe tip keqdashesi. Nuk bej pjese, nderkohe, ne simpatiket. Me duket se vuaj nga melçia, ndonese vete une gje prej gjeje nuk kuptoj nga semundjet, as qe e di me saktesi ç'me dhemb. Nuk kurohem e as jam kuruar ndonjehere, pavaresisht nga respekti qe kam per mjekesine (se i shkolluar une jam, por edhe bestyd jam). Me ka hipur ne kole, nuk dua te kurohem nga inati. Ju kete kushedi as edhe e kuptoni, kurse une e kuptoj, ndonese s'jam ne gjendje t'ua shpjegoj se kujt i bej dem me kete inat timin. E di fort mire, qe as mjekeve e askujt tjeter nuk i behet vone qe jam tip inatçori, e as vete per veten nuk e çaj koken, ndonese fort mire e di qe inati eshte dem i kokes. Ngado qe ta sjellesh e kam mbushur mendjen, e kam bere top: nuk dua qe nuk dua te kurohem. Me dhemb kjo e shkrete melçi, le te dhembe, nuk paska plasur!”
Source: Notes from Underground, White Nights, The Dream of a Ridiculous Man, and Selections from The House of the Dead
“we are all divorced from life, we are all cripples, every one of us, more or less. We are so divorced from it that we feel at once a sort of loathing for real life, and so cannot bear to be reminded of it. Why, we have come almost to looking upon real life as an effort, almost as hard work, and we are all privately agreed that it is better in books”
Source: Notes from Underground, White Nights, The Dream of a Ridiculous Man, and Selections from The House of the Dead
“And with love one can live even without happiness.”
Source: Notes from Underground, White Nights, The Dream of a Ridiculous Man, and Selections from The House of the Dead
“My God, but what do I care about the laws of nature and arithmetic if for some reason these laws and two times two is four are not to my liking? To be sure, I won't break through such a wall with my forehead if I really have not got strength to do it, but neither will I be reconciled with it simply because I have a stone wall here and have not got strength enough.”
Source: Notes from Underground, White Nights, The Dream of a Ridiculous Man, and Selections from The House of the Dead
“And who knows (one cannot vouch for it), perhaps the whole goal mankind strives for on earth consists just in this ceaselessness of the process of achievement alone, that is to say, in life itself, and not essentially in the goal, which, of course, is bound to be nothing other than two times two is four--that is, a formula; and two times two is four is no longer life, gentlemen, but the beginning of death.”
Source: Notes from Underground, White Nights, The Dream of a Ridiculous Man, and Selections from The House of the Dead
“You will say that that was in the comparatively barbarous times; that these are barbarous times too, because also, comparatively speaking, pins are stuck in even now; that though man has now learned to see more clearly than in barbarous ages, he is still far from having learnt to act as reason and science would dictate.”
Source: Notes from Underground, White Nights, The Dream of a Ridiculous Man, and Selections from The House of the Dead
“É indiscutível que o homem gosta muito de construir e traçar caminhos; mas como acontece então que ele ame tão apaixonadamente a destruição e o caos?”
Source: Notes from Underground, White Nights, The Dream of a Ridiculous Man, and Selections from The House of the Dead
“O fim dos fins, senhores, é não fazer nada, absolutamente nada.”
Source: Notes from Underground, White Nights, The Dream of a Ridiculous Man, and Selections from The House of the Dead
“The enjoyment of the sufferer finds expression in those moans; if he did not feel enjoyment in them he would not moan.”
Source: Notes from Underground, White Nights, The Dream of a Ridiculous Man, and Selections from The House of the Dead
“Sevginin bulunmadığı yerde aklı da arama.”
Source: Notes from Underground, White Nights, The Dream of a Ridiculous Man, and Selections from The House of the Dead
“Artık sevemeyecek bir insan olduktan; sevgiyi manen üstün olmak, zorbalık yapmak olarak kabul ettikten sonra...Evet, ben yaşam boyunca sevginin başka türlüsünü düşünememişimdir;
şimdi bile sevginin sevilen tarafından kendi isteğiyle verilen, karşısındakinin ona hükmetme hakkı olduğuna inanıyorum. Yer altı hayallerimde bile sevgiyi yaşama kavgasının dışında düşünemedim. Hayallerimde sevgi nefretle başlayıp manen üstünlüğümle bitmiştir; ama sonunda dize getirdiğim kadını ne yapacağımı bilememiştim. Bunun anlaşılamayacak bir yanı yok.”
Source: Notes from Underground, White Nights, The Dream of a Ridiculous Man, and Selections from The House of the Dead
“É possível que o homem não ame senão o bem-estar. Não é possível que ele ame na mesma medida o sofrimento? Não é possível que o sofrimento lhe seja tão vantajoso quanto o o bem-estar? O homem põe-se por vezes a amar apaixonadamente o sofrimento; isso é um fato.”
Source: Notes from Underground, White Nights, The Dream of a Ridiculous Man, and Selections from The House of the Dead
“O sofrimento! Mas é a causa única da consciência! Eu vos declarei, é verdade, no início, que, a consciência, na minha opinião, é um dos maiores males do homem; mas sei que o homem a ama e não a trocará por nenhuma satisfação, seja qual for.”
Source: Notes from Underground, White Nights, The Dream of a Ridiculous Man, and Selections from The House of the Dead
“O amor é um mistério divino, que deve permanecer escondido aos olhos de todos, aconteça o que acontecer.”
Source: Notes from Underground, White Nights, The Dream of a Ridiculous Man, and Selections from The House of the Dead
“Em todo caso, observa-se constantemente nele um certo constrangimento , sempre que atinge um fim. Tenta aproximar-se do fim, mas, tão logo o atinge, não está mais satisfeito; e isso é verdadeiramente bem cômico.”
Source: Notes from Underground, White Nights, The Dream of a Ridiculous Man, and Selections from The House of the Dead
“Dünya kurulalı beri insanların yalnızca kişisel çıkarlarına göre davrandıkları görülmüş müdür? İnsanların bile bile, yani gerçek çıkarlarını iyice anladıkları halde, bunları ikinci plana itip kimsenin zorlamadığı başka yollara, bir sürü karışık, tehlikeli işlere atıldıklarını gösteren milyonlarca örneğe ne demeli? Evet, insanlar kendilerine gösterilen yolun tam tersine, canlarının istediği yöne yürümüşler; akıl almaz, çetin, neredeyse karanlık yollarda yürümek için direnmişlerdir. Dik kafalılık, direnmek onlara çıkarlarından daha tatlı geliyor, anlaşılan...”
Source: Notes from Underground, White Nights, The Dream of a Ridiculous Man, and Selections from The House of the Dead