A Writer's Diary, Volume One, 1873-1876 Quotes

“Dadas las circunstancias, debo asumir a la vez los papeles de demandante y demandado, de juez y parte, y encuentro toda esa farsa de la naturaleza totalmente absurda, considerando incluso humillante tener que soportarla.
En consecuencia, en mi indiscutible calidad de demandante y demandado, de juez y parte, condeno a esa naturaleza, que con tanta desconsideración y rudeza me ha traído al mundo para sufrir, a perecer conmigo… desconsideración y rudeza me ha
traído al mundo para sufrir, a perecer conmigo… Y como no puedo aniquilar a la
naturaleza, me aniquilo a mí mismo”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, A Writer's Diary, Volume One, 1873-1876

“Did our historian (i.e. Granovsky) really not know that great and honorable ideas (not only profit and a handful of wool) ultimately triumph among peoples and nations despite all the apparent absurd impracticality of these ideas and despite all their idealism, which is so humiliating in the eyes of the diplomats and the Metternichs? That a policy of honor and disinterestedness is not only higher but, perhaps, the most advantageous policy of a great nation, precisely because it is great?The policy of immediate practicality and endless rushing about to seek greater profit and achieve more practical aims exposes the triviality, the inner weakness, and the unhappy condition of the state.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, A Writer's Diary, Volume One, 1873-1876