The House of the Dead or Prison Life in Siberia with an introduction by Julius Bramont

by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Yes, man is a pliable animal—he must be so defined—a being who gets accustomed to everything!

Money is a tangible resonant liberty, inestimable for a man entirely deprived of true liberty.

It once came into my head that if it were desired to reduce a man to nothing—to punish him atrociously, to crush him in such a manner that the most hardened murderer would tremble before such a punishment, and take fright beforehand—it would be necessary to give to his work a character of complete uselessness, even to absurdity.

"May the Siberian leprosy devour you with ulcers!"