Fyodor Dostoyevsky - Notes from Underground (1864)

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And what is it in us that is mellowed by civilization? All it does, I'd say, is to develop in man a capacity to feel a greater variety of sensations. And nothing, absolutely nothing else. And through this development, man will yet learn how to enjoy bloodshed. Why, it has already happened.... Civilization has made man, if not always more bloodthirsty, at least more viciously, more horribly bloodthirsty.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Once it's been proved to you that you're descended from an ape, it's no use pulling a face; just accept it. Once they've proved to you that a single droplet of your own fat must be dearer to you than a hundred thousand of your fellow human beings and consequently that all so-called virtues and duties are nothing but ravings and prejudices, then accept that too, because there's nothing to be done.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky
It was not only that I could not become spiteful, I did not know how to become anything; neither spiteful nor kind, neither a rascal nor an honest man, neither a hero nor an insect. Now, I am living out my life in my corner, taunting myself with the spiteful and useless consolation that an intelligent man cannot become anything seriously, and it is only the fool who becomes anything.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Yes — you, you alone must pay for everything because you turned up like this, because I'm a scoundrel, because I'm the nastiest, most ridiculous, pettiest, stupidest, and most envious worm of all those living on earth who're no better than me in any way, but who, the devil knows why, never get embarrassed, while all my life I have to endure insults from every louse — that's my fate. What do I care that you do not understand any of this?

Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Every man has some reminiscences which he would not tell to everyone, but only to his friends. He has others which he would not reveal even to his friends, but only to himself, and that in secret. But finally there are still others which a man is even afraid to tell himself, and every decent man has a considerable number of such things stored away. That is, one can even say that the more decent he is, the greater the number of such things in his mind.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky
The formula 'two plus two equals five' is not without its attractions.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky
I am a sick man… I am a wicked man. An unattractive man.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky
In despair there are the most intense enjoyments, especially when one is very acutely conscious of the hopelessness of one's position.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Petersburg, the most abstract and premeditated city on earth.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky
The best definition of man is: a being that goes on two legs and is ungrateful.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky
When… in the course of all these thousands of years has man ever acted in accordance with his own interests?

Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... people only count their misfortunes; their good luck they take no account of. But if they were to take everything into account, as they should, they'd find that they had their fair share of it.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky
What man wants is simply independent choice, whatever that independence may cost and wherever it may lead.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky
To care only for well-being seems to me positively ill-bred. Whether it's good or bad, it is sometimes very pleasant, too, to smash things.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Granted I am a babbler, a harmless vexatious babbler, like all of us. But what is to be done if the direct and sole vocation of every intelligent man is babble, that is, the intentional pouring of water through a sieve?

Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Beyond the grave they will find nothing but death. But we shall keep the secret, and for their happiness we shall allure them with the reward of heaven and eternity.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky