Notes From Underground Quotes

“...there is no explaining anything by reasoning and so it is useless to reason.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, 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.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Notes from Underground, White Nights, The Dream of a Ridiculous Man, and Selections from The House of the Dead

“I am a sick man...I am a spiteful man. An unattractive man. I think that my liver hurts.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky

“If you were to destroy in mankind the belief in immortality, not only love but every living force maintaining the life of the world would at once be dried up. Moreover, nothing then would be immoral, everything would be permissible, even cannibalism.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky

“I am to blame because, first of all, I am cleverer than anybody else around me.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Notes from Underground & The Double

“Long live the underground!”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Notes from Underground & The Double

“Which is better a cheap happiness or lofty suffering? Tell me then, which is better?”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Notes from Underground & The Double

“Even then I already carried the underground in my soul.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Notes from Underground & The Double

“And who knows (there is no saying with certainty), perhaps the only goal on earth to which mankind is striving lies in this incessant process of attaining, in other words, in life itself, and not in the thing to be attained, which must always be expressed as a formula, as positive as twice two makes four, and such positiveness is not life, gentlemen, but is the beginning of death. Anyway, man has always been afraid of this mathematical certainty, and I am afraid of it now. Granted that man does nothing but seek that mathematical certainty, he traverses oceans, sacrifices his life in the quest, but to succeed, really to find it, dreads, I assure you.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, Notes from the Underground

“Aşk, sevilen kişinin seven kişiye kendisi üzerinde zorbalık yapma hakkını armağan etmesidir.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Notes from Underground

“I agree that two and two make four is an excellent thing; but to give everything its due, two and two make five is also a very fine thing.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Notes from Underground & The Double

“I couldn't even conceive of playing a secondary part...Either a hero, or dirt, there was nothing in between. That was my undoing”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Notes from Underground & The Double

“Compared to them I was a fly, a nasty obscene fly – cleverer, better educated, nobler than any of them, that goes without saying – but a fly, always getting out of everybody's way”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky

“I say, let the world perish, if I can always drink my tea.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Notes from Underground & The Double

“there are continually turning up in life moral and rational persons, sages and lovers of human- ity who make it their object to live all their lives as morally and rationally as possible, to be, so to speak, a light to their neighbours simply in order to show them that it is possible to live morally and rationally in this world. And yet we all know that those very people sooner or later have been false to themselves, playing some queer trick, o en a most un- seemly one. Now I ask you: what can be expected of man since he is a being endowed with strange qualities? Show- er upon him every earthly blessing, drown him in a sea of happiness, so that nothing but bubbles of bliss can be seen
Free eBooks at Planet eBook.com
on the surface; give him economic prosperity, such that he should have nothing else to do but sleep, eat cakes and busy himself with the continuation of his species, and even then out of sheer ingratitude, sheer spite, man would play you some nasty trick. He would even risk his cakes and would deliberately desire the most fatal rubbish, the most uneco- nomical absurdity, simply to introduce into all this positive good sense his fatal fantastic element. It is just his fantastic dreams, his vulgar folly that he will desire to retain, simply in order to prove to himself—as though that were so neces- sary— that men still are men and not the keys of a piano, which the laws of nature threaten to control so completely that soon one will be able to desire nothing but by the cal- endar. And that is not all: even if man really were nothing but a piano-key, even if this were proved to him by natural science and mathematics, even then he would not become reasonable, but would purposely do something perverse out of simple ingratitude, simply to gain his point. And if he does not nd means he will contrive destruction and chaos, will contrive su erings of all sorts, only to gain his point! He will launch a curse upon the world, and as only man can curse (it is his privilege, the primary distinction be- tween him and other animals), may be by his curse alone he will attain his object—that is, convince himself that he is a man and not a piano-key! If you say that all this, too, can be calculated and tabulated—chaos and darkness and curses, so that the mere possibility of calculating it all be- forehand would stop it all, and reason would reassert itself, then man would purposely go mad in order to be rid of rea-
0 Notes from the Underground
son and gain his point! I believe in it, I answer for it, for the whole work of man really seems to consist in nothing but proving to himself every minute that he is a man and not a piano-key! It may be at the cost of his skin, it may be by can- nibalism! And this being so, can one help being tempted to rejoice that it has not yet come o , and that desire still de- pends on something we don’t know?”
― dostoevksy

“And who knows (there is no saying with certainty), perhaps the only goal on earth to which mankind is striving
Free eBooks at Planet eBook.com
lies in this incessant process of attaining, in other words, in life itself, and not in the thing to be attained, which must always be expressed as a formula, as positive as twice two makes four, and such positiveness is not life, gentlemen, but is the beginning of death. Anyway, man has always been afraid of this mathematical certainty, and I am afraid of it now. Granted that man does nothing but seek that math- ematical certainty, he traverses oceans, sacri ces his life in the quest, but to succeed, really to nd it, dreads, I assure you. He feels that when he has found it there will be noth- ing for him to look for. When workmen have nished their work they do at least receive their pay, they go to the tavern, then they are taken to the police-station—and there is oc- cupation for a week. But where can man go? Anyway, one can observe a certain awkwardness about him when he has attained such objects. He loves the process of attaining, but does not quite like to have attained, and that, of course, is very absurd. In fact, man is a comical creature; there seems to be a kind of jest in it all. But yet mathematical certainty is a er all, something insu erable. Twice two makes four seems to me simply a piece of insolence. Twice two makes four is a pert coxcomb who stands with arms akimbo bar- ring your path and spitting. I admit that twice two makes four is an excellent thing, but if we are to give everything its due, twice two makes ve is sometimes a very charming thing too.
And why are you so rmly, so triumphantly, convinced that only the normal and the positive—in other words, only what is conducive to welfare—is for the advantage of man?
Notes from the Underground
Is not reason in error as regards advantage? Does not man, perhaps, love something besides well-being? Perhaps he is just as fond of su ering? Perhaps su ering is just as great a bene t to him as well-being? Man is sometimes extraor- dinarily, passionately, in love with su ering, and that is a fact. ere is no need to appeal to universal history to prove that; only ask yourself, if you are a man and have lived at all. As far as my personal opinion is concerned, 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. I hold no brief for su ering nor for well-being either. I am standing for ... my caprice, and for its being guaran- teed to me when necessary. Su ering would be out of place in vaudevilles, for instance; I know that. In the ‘Palace of Crystal’ it is unthinkable; su ering means doubt, negation, and what would be the good of a ‘palace of crystal’ if there could be any doubt about it? And yet I think man will never renounce real su ering, that is, destruction and chaos. Why, su ering is the sole origin of consciousness. ough I did lay it down at the beginning that consciousness is the great- est misfortune for man, yet I know man prizes it and would not give it up for any satisfaction. Consciousness, for in- stance, is in nitely superior to twice two makes four. Once you have mathematical certainty there is nothing le to do or to understand. ere will be nothing le but to bottle up your ve senses and plunge into contemplation. While if you stick to consciousness, even though the same result is attained, you can at least og yourself at times, and that will, at any rate, liven you up. Reactionary as it is, corporal
punishment is better than nothing.”
― Dostoevsky, Fyodor

“with love one can live even without happiness. Even in sorrow life is sweet; life is sweet”
― Dostoevskiy Fedor Mikhaylovich, ZAPISKI IZ PODPOLЬYa. IGROK. KROTKAYa: Povest. Roman. Rasskaz. Seriya "Moya klassika"

“I invented a life, so that I should at any rate live.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Notes from Underground & The Double

“hate, or love, anything rather than do nothing.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Notes from Underground & The Double

“I could have forgiven him for striking me, but I couldn't forgive that moving me from place to place without even seeing me.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Notes from Underground & The Double

“But man is a superficial and unseemly creature and perhaps, like a chess player, is fond only of the actual process of achieving his goal rather than the goal itself.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky

“In an enchanting encounter with the myriad books that I met in a cosy book shop today, I couldn't help but get bedazzled with the cornucopia of stories and poetry that lay snuggled in the plethora of shelves at display. You wouldn't believe it dear readers that I heard a real symphony in my ears at that very moment of this august encounter that happened in November. There was no rain today but the bright and sunny spirit of the day was as magical as any rainy day might have made me feel.

I do not know about the other people in the book shop, but to me that very moment felt as if I was on cloud nine. Proverbially it felt as if I was listening with a mellifluous ecstasy to the magic of Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake.

At that exact moment when I lay my hands or rather I would say I grabbed my hands on the two books that I have been yearning to read since a long time, I guess the entire Universe paused.

Now without having an iota of energy within me to any other further delay in experiencing the magic and in experiencing the mad euphoria that has serenaded my entire being, I take your leave my dearest readers to indulge myself with and in the most pleasurable way possible with Franz Kafka & Fyodor Dostoevsky.”
― Avijeet Das

“Not just wicked, no, I never even managed to become anything: neither wicked nor good, neither a scoundrel or an honest man, neither a hero or an insect. And now I am living out my life in my corner, taunting myself with the spiteful and utterly futile consolation that it is even impossible for an intelligent man seriously to become anything, only fools become something.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky

“The pleasure here lay precisely in the too vivid consciousness of one’s own humiliation; in feeling that one had reached the ultimate wall; that, bad as it is, it cannot be otherwise; that there is no way out for you, that you will never change into a different person; that even if you had enough time and faith left to change yourself into something different, you probably would not wish to change; and even if you did wish it, you would still not do anything, because in fact there is perhaps nothing to change into.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky

“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. And here, with this slap - you’ll simply be crushed by the consciousness of what sort of slime you’ve been reduced to.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky

“What does reason know? Reason knows only what it has managed to learn.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky

“But man is a frivolous and unseemly being, and perhaps, similar to a chess player, likes only the process of achieving the goal, but not the goal itself. And who knows (one cannot vouch for it), perhaps the ceaselessness of the process of achievement alone, that is to say, in life itself, and not essentially 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 not longer life, gentlemen, but the beginning of death. At least man has always somehow feared this two times two is four, and I fear it even now. Suppose all man ever does is search for this two times two is four; he crosses oceans, he sacrifices his life in the search; but to search it out, actually to find it - by God, he’s somehow afraid. For he senses that once he finds it, there will be nothing to search for,”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky

“Now look: if instead of a palace there is a chicken coop, and it starts to rain, I will perhaps get into the chicken coop to avoid wetting, but all the same I will not take the chicken coop for a palace out of gratitude for its having kept me from the rain. You laugh, you even say that in that case it makes no difference - chicken coop or mansion. Yes, say I, if one were to only live so as not to get wet.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky

“to be too much aware of things is an illness”
― Fjodor Michailowitsch Dostojewski

“I am crushed with tedium. Atter all, the direct, immediate, legitimate fruit of heightened consciousness is intertia, that is, the deliberate refusal to do anything. I have mentioned this before. I repeat, and repeat emphatically: all spontaneous people, men of action, are active because they are stupid and limited.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, Notes from Underground