"And why are you so firmly, so..." - Quote by Fyodor Dostoevsky
And why are you so firmly, so triumphantly, convinced that only the normal and the positive--in other words, only what is conducive to welfare--is for the advantage of man? Is not reason in error as regards advantage? Does not man, perhaps, love something besides well-being? Perhaps he is just as fond of suffering? Perhaps suffering is just as great a benefit to him as well-being? Man is sometimes extraordinarily, passionately, in love with suffering, and that is a fact.
More by Fyodor Dostoevsky
“That's just the point: an honest and sensitive man opens his heart, and the man of business goes on eating - and then he eats you up.”
“Power is only vouchsafed to the man who dares to stoop and pick it up. There is only one thing, one thing needful: one has only to dare!”
“The perpetration of a crime is accompanied by illness!”
More on Suffering
“For years my life alternated between depression and acute anxiety. One night I woke up in a state of dread and intense fear, more intense than I had ever experienced before. Life seemed meaningless, barren, hostile. It became so unbearable that suddenly the thought came into my mind, I cannot live with myself any longer.”
“Thou hast not half that power to do me harm As I have to be hurt.”
“The world has raised its whip; where will it descend?”