Notes from the Underground

by Fyodor Dostoevsky

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

I am firmly persuaded that a great deal of consciousness, every sort of consciousness, in fact, is a disease.

consuming myself till at last the bitterness turned into a sort of shameful accursed sweetness, and at last—into positive real enjoyment! Yes, into enjoyment,

the enjoyment was just from the too intense consciousness of one’s own degradation;