Notes from the Underground

by Fyodor Dostoevsky

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

Such a gentleman simply dashes straight for his object like an infuriated bull with its horns down, and nothing but a wall will stop him.

Oh, gentlemen, do you know, perhaps I consider myself an intelligent man, only because all my life I have been able neither to begin nor to finish anything.