Notes from the Underground

by Fyodor Dostoevsky

why does it so happen that all these statisticians, sages and lovers of humanity, when they reckon up human advantages invariably leave out one?

this strange advantage does not fall under any classification and is not in place in any list.

but of course he is your friend, too; and indeed there is no one, no one to whom he is not a friend!

I warn you that my friend is a compound personality and therefore it is difficult to blame him as an individual.

The fact is, gentlemen, it seems there must really exist something that is dearer to almost every man than his greatest advantages,

this advantage is remarkable from the very fact that it breaks down all our classifications, and continually shatters every system constructed by lovers of mankind for the benefit of mankind.

But before I mention this advantage to you, I want to compromise myself personally, and therefore I boldly declare that all these fine systems, all these theories for explaining to mankind their real normal interests, in order that inevitably striving to pursue these interests they may at once become good and noble—are, in my opinion, so far, mere logical exercises!

man has such a predilection for systems and abstract deductions

Only look about you: blood is being spilt in streams, and in the merriest way, as though it were champagne.

Tale of Two Cities

The only gain of civilization for mankind is the greater capacity for variety of sensations—and absolutely nothing more.

Materialistic view. Seems to be against that though

Have you noticed that it is the most civilized gentlemen who have been the subtlest slaughterers, to whom the Attilas and Stenka Razins could not hold a candle, and if they are not so conspicuous as the Attilas and Stenka Razins it is simply because they are so often met with, are so ordinary and have become so familiar to us.

You are confident that then man will cease from intentional error and will, so to say, be compelled not to want to set his will against his normal interests. That is not all; then, you say, science itself will teach man (though to my mind it’s a superfluous luxury) that he never has really had any caprice or will of his own, and that

he himself is something of the nature of a piano-key or the stop of an organ, and that there are, besides, things called the laws of nature; so that everything he does is not done by his willing it, but is done of itself, by the laws of nature.

It is boredom sets one sticking golden pins into people, but all that would not matter. What is bad (this is my comment again) is that I dare say people will be thankful for the gold pins then.

“I say, gentleman, hadn’t we better kick over the whole show and scatter rationalism to the winds, simply to send these logarithms to the devil, and to enable us to live once more at our own sweet foolish will!” That again would not matter, but what is annoying is that he would be sure to find followers—such is the nature of man.

has preferred to act as he chose and not in the least as his reason and advantage dictated.

“Ha! ha! ha! But you know there is no such thing as choice in reality, say what you like,” you will interpose with a chuckle. “Science has succeeded in so far analyzing man that we know already that choice and what is called freedom of will is nothing else than—”

Arguing against the man of science, who does not believe in free will. That we are nothing but animals

For who would want to choose by rule? Besides, he will at once be transformed from a human being into an organ-stop or something of the sort; for what is a man without desires, without free will and without choice, if not a stop

in an organ? What do you think? Let us reckon the chances—can such a thing happen or not?

it is contemptible and senseless to suppose that some laws of nature man will never understand),

Gentlemen, you must excuse me for being over-philosophical; it’s the result of forty years underground!

reason is an excellent thing, there’s no disputing that, but reason is nothing but reason and satisfies only the rational side of man’s nature, while will is a manifestation of the whole life, that is, of the whole human life including reason and all the impulses. And although our life, in this manifestation of it, is often worthless, yet it is life and not simply extracting square roots.

human nature acts as a whole, with everything that is in it, consciously or unconsciously, and, even if it goes wrong, it lives.

it preserves for us what is most precious and most important—that is, our personality, our individuality.

But if he is not stupid, he is monstrously ungrateful! Phenomenally ungrateful. In fact, I believe that the best definition of man is the ungrateful biped.

Moral obliquity and consequently lack of good sense; for it has long been accepted that lack of good sense is due to no other cause than moral obliquity.

the history of mankind.

The only thing one can’t say is that it’s rational.

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 neighbors simply in order to show them that it is possible to live morally and rationally in this world.

He will launch a curse upon the world, and as only man can curse (it is his privilege, the primary distinction between him and other animals),

that desire still depends on something we don’t know?

Twice two makes four without my will. As if free will meant that!

fatal idleness, which, as we all know, is the mother of all the vices.

May it not be that he loves chaos and destruction (there can be no disputing that he does sometimes love it) because he is instinctively afraid of attaining his object and completing the edifice he is constructing? Who knows, perhaps he only loves that edifice from a distance, and is by no means in love with it at close quarters; perhaps he only loves building it and does not want to live in it, but will leave it, when completed, for the use of les animaux domestiques—such as the ants, the sheep, and so on.

ill-bred.

suffering is the sole origin of consciousness.

Jung

Reactionary as it is, corporal punishment is better than nothing.

La penitencia vale más

Utopía

Then why am I made with such desires?

Though I have said that I envy the normal man to the last drop of my bile, yet I should not care to be in his place such as he is now (though I shall not cease envying him).

Estoy celoso de su vida pero sé que vivo mejor que Él

The more decent he is, the greater the number of such things in his mind.

Represión

Reminiscencias

If it is not for the benefit of the public why should I not simply recall these incidents in my own mind without putting them on paper? Quite so; but yet it is more imposing on paper.

For some reason I believe that if I write it down I should get rid of it. Why not try?

I fancy it is the wet snow that has reminded me of that incident which I cannot shake off now.

Tiene trauma

to the high standard I set for myself, I often looked at myself with furious discontent, which verged on loathing, and so I inwardly attributed the same feeling to everyone. I hated my face, for instance: I thought it disgusting, and even suspected that there was something base in my expression,

I would even have put up with looking base if, at the same time, my face could have been thought strikingly intelligent.

A cultivated and decent man cannot be vain without setting a fearfully high standard for himself, and without despising and almost hating himself at certain moments.

I was morbidly sensitive as a man of our age should be.

Every decent man of our age must be a coward and a slave.