Demons

by Fyodor Dostoevsky

I don’t understand how an atheist could reach this point knowing that God does not exist and not kill himself immediately. To realize that God does not exist, and not to realize at the same time that you yourself have become God is absurd. Otherwise you’d certainly kill yourself. If you realize it, you are a tsar and you will no longer kill yourself, but will live in the greatest glory. But one man, the one who is first, must kill himself without fail; otherwise who will begin and prove it? I will kill myself without fail in order to begin and prove it. Now I am still only God against my will, and I’m unhappy, because I’m obliged to proclaim self-will. All are unhappy because all are afraid to proclaim self-will. Man until now has been so unhappy and impoverished, because he has been afraid to proclaim the most important aspect of self-will and has shown his self-will in marginal ways, like a schoolboy. I’m dreadfully unhappy because I’m dreadfully afraid. Fear is the curse of man… But I am proclaiming self-will, and I am obliged to believe that I don’t believe. I’ll begin and end and thus open the door. And I’ll bring salvation. That is the only thing that will save all people and will cause them to be reborn in the next generation; for in his present physical form, as far as I have been thinking about it, it’s impossible for man to be without his former God altogether. I have been looking for the attribute of my godhood for three years, and I have found it: the attribute...