“Success is not a question of how much power or money you have acquired.
It is a question of how satisfied you are with WHO YOU ARE.”
“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
“This pleasure came precisely from being too clearly aware of your own degradation; from the feeling of having gone to the uttermost limits; that it is was vile, bit it could not have been otherwise; that you could not escape, you could never make yourself into a different person”
Source: Notes from Underground & The Double
“Even in the moment of the
acutest spleen, I was inwardly conscious with shame that I
was not only not a spiteful but not even an embittered man,
that I was simply scaring sparrows at random and amusing
myself by it.”
“As for my own personal opinion. I find it somehow unseemly to love only well-being. Whether it's a good thing or a bad thing, smashing things is also sometimes very pleasant. I am not standing up for suffering, or for well-being either. I am standing up for my own caprices and for having them guaranteed when necessary.”
“I am a sick man....I am an angry man. I am an unattractive man. I think there is something wrong with my liver.”
Source: Notes from Underground & The Double
“This pleasure came precisely from being too clearly aware of your own degradation; from the feeling of having gone to the uttermost limits; that it is was vile, but it could not have been otherwise; that you could not escape, you could never make yourself into a different person”
Source: Notes from Underground & The Double
“لقد كنت بإختصار، أصل أنا نفسي إلى حد التقزز من أحلام يقظتي”
“However what can a decent, respectable man talk about with the greatest pleasure?
Answer:himself.
Well, so I too will talk about myself.”
Source: Notes from Underground & The Double