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Notes from Underground QUOTES

Notes from Underground QUOTES

41 " But the trouble was that the hysterics could not go on for ever, and (I am writing the loathsome truth) lying face downwards on the sofa with my face thrust into my nasty leather pillow, I began by degrees to be aware of a far-away, involuntary but irresistible feeling that it would be awkward now for me to raise my head and look Liza straight in the face. Why was I ashamed? I don't know, but I was ashamed. "

― Fyodor Dostoevsky , Notes from Underground

42 " No, I'd better sit on to the end,' I went on thinking; 'you would be pleased, my friends, if I went away. Nothing will induce me to go. I'll go on sitting here and drinking to the end, on purpose, as a sign that I don't think you of the slightest consequence. "

― Fyodor Dostoevsky , Notes from Underground

43 " I swear, gentlemen, that to be too conscious is an illness--a real thorough-going illness. "

― Fyodor Dostoevsky , Notes from Underground

44 " 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. Yes, a man in the nineteenth century must and morally ought to be pre-eminently a characterless creature; a man of character, an active man is pre-eminently a limited creature. That is my conviction of forty years. "

― Fyodor Dostoevsky , Notes from Underground

45 " I am extremely superstitious, sufficiently so to respect medicine, "

― Fyodor Dostoevsky , Notes from Underground

46 " هل يستطيع إنسان يتمتع بالإدارك أن يحترم نفسه؟ "

― Fyodor Dostoevsky , Notes from Underground

47 " To live longer than forty years is bad manners, is vulgar, immoral. Who does live beyond forty? Answer that, sincerely and honestly I will tell you who do: fools and worthless fellows. I "

― Fyodor Dostoevsky , Notes from Underground

48 " I swear, gentlemen, that to be too conscious is an illness--a real thorough-going illness. For "

― Fyodor Dostoevsky , Notes from Underground

49 " that to be too conscious is an illness--a real thorough-going illness. "

― Fyodor Dostoevsky , Notes from Underground

50 " …there are continually turning up in life moral and rational persons, sages and lovers of humanity 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, often a most unseemly one. "

― Fyodor Dostoevsky , Notes from Underground

51 " لم أكن أعرف كيف أكون أي شيء! لم أستطع أن أكون حقودًا أو طيب القلب، ولا نذلًا أو أمينًا، ولا بطلًا أو حشرة. إنني أعيش حياتي الآن في هذه الزاوية، مهينًا نفسي بمواساة حاقدة غير مجدية تتمثل في قولي لها: " ﺇﻥ ﺍﻟﺫﻜﻲ ﻻ ﻴﻤﻜﻨﻪ ﺃﻥ ﻴﻜﻭﻥ ﺸﻴﺌﺎ ﺨﻁﻴﺭًا، وﺃﻥ ﺍﻷﺤﻤﻕ ﻭﺤﺩﻩ ، ﻫﻭ الذي ﻴﻤﻜﻨﻪ ﺃﻥ ﻴﻜﻭﻥ ﺃﻱ ﺸﻲ. "

― Fyodor Dostoevsky , Notes from Underground

52 " Question: What is he? Answer: A sluggard; how very pleasant it would have been to hear that of oneself! It would mean that I was positively defined, it would mean that there was something to say about me. “Sluggard”—why, it is a calling and vocation, it is a career. Do not jest, it is so. "

― Fyodor Dostoevsky , Notes from Underground

53 " But what can a decent man speak of with most pleasure? Answer: Of himself. Well, so I will talk about myself. II "

― Fyodor Dostoevsky , Notes from Underground

54 " But I repeat for the hundredth time, there is one case, one only, when man may consciously, purposely, desire what is injurious to himself, what is stupid, very stupid—simply in order to have the right to desire for himself even what is very stupid and not to be bound by an obligation to desire only what is sensible. "

― Fyodor Dostoevsky , Notes from Underground

55 " In any case civilisation has made mankind if not more bloodthirsty, at least more vilely, more loathsomely bloodthirsty. In old days he saw justice in bloodshed and with his conscience at peace exterminated those he thought proper. Now we do think bloodshed abominable and yet we engage in this abomination, and with more energy than ever. "

― Fyodor Dostoevsky , Notes from Underground

56 " the public generally can only ejaculate in amazement. "

― Fyodor Dostoevsky , Notes from Underground

57 " am forty years old now, and you know forty years is a whole lifetime; you know it is extreme old age. To live longer than forty years is bad manners, is vulgar, immoral. Who does live beyond forty? Answer that, sincerely and honestly I will tell you who do: fools and worthless fellows. "

― Fyodor Dostoevsky , Notes from Underground

58 " Yes, a man in the nineteenth century must and morally ought to be pre-eminently a characterless creature; a man of character, an active man is pre-eminently a limited creature. "

― Fyodor Dostoevsky , Notes from Underground

59 " there are the most intense enjoyments, especially when one is very acutely conscious of the hopelessness of one's position. "

― Fyodor Dostoevsky , Notes from Underground

60 " But what made me furious was that I knew for certain that I should go, that I should make a point of going; and the more tactless, the more unseemly my going would be, the more certainly I would go. "

― Fyodor Dostoevsky , Notes from Underground