Quotessence
Home / Quotes / Quote by Fyodor Dostoevsky

Quote by Fyodor Dostoevsky

“And why are you so firmly and triumphantly certain that only what is normal and positive - in short, only well-being - is good for man? Is reason mistaken about what is good? After all, perhaps prosperity isn't the only thing that pleases mankind, perhaps he is just as attracted to suffering. Perhaps suffering is just as good for him as prosperity. Sometimes a man is intensely, even passionately, attached to suffering - that is a fact. About this there is no need to consult universal history: ask yourself, if you are a man and have ever lived even in some degree. 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.”

Quote by Fyodor Dostoevsky

Book:Notes from Underground & The Double
Create image

Work

Notes from Underground & The Double

Browse quotes and source details for this work. more

Author

Fyodor Dostoevsky
Fyodor Dostoevsky

A renowned Russian novelist and a pioneer of psychological novels. His works deeply reveal the complexity of human nature and the injustice of society, having a profound impact on literature worldwide. more

You May Also Like

“Many of us want one of the other events: we want to be part of a political revolution, a scientific discovery, an artistic innovation, and - because our society tells us that this is the event that in the end makes up for all our misery - we want to fall deeply in love and stay so. Suffering, in turn, is not an even that any of us want. Unfortunately, it is probably the one that many of us are more likely to experience than any of the others. As tempting as it is to try to offer a more sanguine conclusion to the distilliation of ideas that this book has attempted to accomplish, I cannot end on a polite lie. I know that if falling in love is an event, losing that love is no less so.”

LoveSufferingEvent
Book:Distillations: Theory, Ethics, Affect
Create image

“Misophorism is the absolute reality that misathymia (which is Misery—which is Death—which is Truth) is everywhere, the ubiquitous constant—it is inescapable. Reality is naught but misathymia. It inheres within every facet of life. We must thus consider its avenues and disabuse ourselves of petty nothings, for if the ultimate goal of life is comfort and joy, it is ill-suited for existence, as all Life Forms must toil. A worm, with no cerebrations whatever, must, by its ingrained nature, suffer to survive, lest it starve or be devoured. Higher statures face the same. An ape; it must protect its territory lest it too starve or be maimed. What of their assailants? Has the Creator (whatever form it takes!) bequeathed to them unique ataraxy? The barbaric slaughter of prey betrays the starvation of the predator. Should it fail to nourish itself, desperation irrupts into its withering form, until, at last, it betakes itself to cannibalism. Nature’s brutality is manifest. No creature knows peace; fear inheres within each. And what of Man, the highest stature of all? Within him misathymia is inordinate. His intellect has rendered him beyond all other creatures, doubtless a bitter Curse. Consciousness educes the silent agony from within him, for when he finds shelter and nourishment, his mind ambles about, his atavistic nature befuddled with none to Kill and none to flee from. In this, greater forms of misery may be achieved. The Brutish Man cannot conceive of the miseries of homelessness, nor of the agonies of ostracization, of exile, of impoverishment. A man without the conception of wealth cannot comprehend the loss of it, nor the torment it educes. The Ancient Man cannot fathom the Array of New Horrors that assail him today. This betrays the cruelty of all things; life’s predilection for suffering is unquestionable. All Good exists to further life’s affinity for greater forms of horror. For this, Sane men have but one choice: to destroy oneself.”

PhilosophySufferingPessimismAgonyBrutalityNihilism
Book:The Misophorism Trilogy
Create image