Demons

by Fyodor Dostoevsky

“You left, I believe, because they expected an epidemic out there after the war?”

“H'm. If the Babylon out there really does fall, and great will be the fall thereof (about which I quite agree with you, yet I think it will last my time),

It's only the government that still means to resist, but it brandishes its cudgel in the dark and hits its own men.

They speak aloud while all is silent. What is most effective about them (in spite of their style) is the incredible boldness with which they look the truth straight in the face. To look facts straight in the face is only possible to Russians of this generation.

Russian revolutionary idea lies in the negation of honour.

in a honeyed voice

“It will begin early next May and will be over by October,”

H'm! But he really isn't stupid . . . and he is simply a rat

“Stage tricks. You haven't got an inspector in Moscow.”

is their being ashamed of having an opinion of their own. That is a force!

that not one idea of their own is left in their heads!

originality a di...

but one wants will.

It's just with people like this that

success is po...

There you reckon on your fingers the forces that make up the circles.

sentimentalism is a very good cement,

persuade four members of the circle to do for a fifth on the pretence that he is a traitor, and you'll tie them all together with the blood they've shed as though it were a knot. They'll be your sl...

Do you know, Karmazinov says that the essence of our creed is the negation of honour, and that by the open advocacy of a right to be dishonourable a Russian can be won over more easily than by anything.”

I only thank God I am not married.

One-tenth enjoys absolute liberty and unbounded power over the other nine-tenths. The others have to give up all individuality and become, so to speak, a herd, and, through boundless submission, will by a series of regenerations attain primaeval innocence, something like the Garden of Eden. They'll have to work, however. The measures proposed by the author for depriving nine-tenths of mankind of their freedom and transforming them into a herd through the education of whole generations are very remarkable, founded on the facts of nature and highly logical.

“And besides, to work for aristocrats and to obey them as though they were gods is contemptible!”

to my mind all these books, Fourier, Cabet, all this talk about the right to work,

Authors?

“To remove a hundred million heads is as difficult as to transform the world by propaganda.

“We know that a mysterious finger is pointing to our delightful country as the land most fitted to accomplish the great task.

And as under the most favourable circumstances you would not get through such a massacre in less than fifty or at the best thirty years — for they are not sheep,

I should advise Dresden, not 'the calm islands.'

bring order into chaos,

He was a man from whom what was most precious was being taken or had been taken, and who was still stunned by the shock.

“Listen. We are going to make a revolution,”

We'll set things in a ferment.

“He suggests a system of spying. Every member of the society spies on the others, and it's his duty to inform against them. Every one belongs to all and all to every one. All are slaves and equal in their slavery. In extreme cases he advocates slander and murder, but the great thing about it is equality. To begin with, the level of education, science, and talents is lowered. A high level of education and science is only possible for great intellects, and they are not wanted. The great intellects have always seized the power and been despots. Great intellects cannot help being despots and they've always done more harm than good. They will be banished or put to death. Cicero will have his tongue cut out, Copernicus will have his eyes put out, Shakespeare will be stoned — that's Shigalovism. Slaves are bound

to be equal.

There has never been either freedom or equality without despotism, but in the herd ther...

Down with culture. We've had enough science! Without science we have material enough to go on for a thousand years, but one must have discipline. The one thing wanting in the world is discipline. The thirst for culture is an aristocratic thirst. The moment you have family ties or love you get the desire for property. We will destroy that desire; we'll make use of drunkenness, slander, spying; we'll make use of incredible corruption; we'll stifle every genius in its infancy. We'll reduce all to a common denominator! Complete equality! 'We've learned a trade, and we are honest men; we need nothing more,' that was an answer given by English working-men recently. Only the necessary is necessary, that's the motto of the whole world henceforward. But it needs a shock. That's for us, the directors, to look after. Slaves must have directors. Absolute submission, absolute loss of individuality, but once in thirty years Shigalov would let them have a shock and they would all suddenly begin eating one another up, to a certain point, simply as a precaution against boredom. Boredom is an aristocratic sensation. The Shigalovians will have no desires. Desire and suffering are our lot, but Shigalovism is for the slaves.”

I have thought of giving up the world to the Pope.

The Pope at the head,

All that's needed is that the Internationale should come to an agreement with the Pope; so it will.

Shigalovism, for Shigalovism is a rare specimen of the jeweller's art. It's an ideal; it's in the future.

What is it

“Stavrogin, you are beautiful,” cried Pyotr Stepanovitch, almost ecstatically. “Do you know that you are beautiful! What's the most precious thing about you is that you sometimes don't know it. Oh, I've studied you! I often watch you on the sly! There's a lot of simpleheartedness and naivete about you still. Do you know that? There still is, there is! You must be suffering and suffering genuinely from that simple-heartedness. I love beauty. I am a nihilist, but I love beauty. Are nihilists incapable of loving beauty? It's only idols they dislike, but I love an idol. You are my idol! You injure no one, and every one hates you. You treat every one as an

You are the leader, you are the sun and I am your worm.”

Bram

“Madman!”

We shall penetrate to the peasantry.

On the other hand, the docility of schoolboys and fools has reached an extreme pitch;

schoolmasters are

bitter and b...

crime is insanity was all the rage;

crime is no longer insanity, but simply common sense, almost a duty; anyway, a gallant protest. 'How can we expect a cultured man not to commit a murder, if he is in need of money.' But these are only the first fruits. The Russian God has already been vanquished by cheap vodka. The peasants are drunk, the mothers are drunk, the children are drunk, the churches are empty, and in the peasant courts one hears, 'Two hundred lashes or stand us a bucket of vodka.' Oh, this generation has only to grow up.

We'll set fires going.

Every scurvy 'group' will be of use.