Fyodor Dostoyevsky Quote

To crush, to annihilate a man utterly, to inflict on him the most terrible punishment so that the most ferocious murderer would shudder at it beforehand, one need only give him work of an absolutely, completely useless and irrational character.

House of the Dead (1862) pt. 1, ch. 1 (translated by Constance Garnett)