Tausif Ahmed

“Now take a man who is sensitive, cultured, and of delicate conscience. What he feels kills him more surely than the material punishment. The judgement which he himself pronounces on his crime is more pitiless than that of the most severe tribunal, the most Draconian law. He lives side by side with another convict, who has not once during all his time in prison reflected on the murder he is expiating. He may even consider himself innocent. Are there not also poor devils who commit crimes in order to be sent to hard labour, and thus escape from a freedom which is much more painful than confinement?”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The House of the Dead

“...everything defiled and degraded. What cannot man live through! Man is a creature that can get accustomed to anything, and I think that is the best definition of him.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The House of the Dead

“April 27. Incapable of living with people, of speaking. Complete immersion in myself, thinking of myself. Apathetic, witless, fearful. I have nothing to say to anyone - never.”
― Franz Kafka, Diaries, 1910-1923

“the poisonous world flows into my mouth like water into that of a drowning man”
― Franz Kafka, Diaries, 1910-1923