Notes from the underground

My interest in Russian literature doubled after reading an article about Tolstoy or Dostoevsky Article was by an English author, translator and critic of Russian Literature. I enjoyed it a lot and have decided to read more and more Russian Classical Literature this summer. so many of the books are in public domain now and i have downloaded all of them. Author of the article says that communists like Stalin and others of his time preferred Tolstoy's work over Dostoevsky's. Tolstoy's work was more philosophical and psychological while Dostoevsky peopled his novels with poor characters and described at length their struggle and social status in his time of Russia. After I finish War and Peace I have decided to read Crime and Punishment by Dostoevsky. I am also reading a short novel or novella by Dostoevsky titled Notes from the underground. It is considered the world's first existentialist work. After reading first few paragraphs I liked it so much that i decided to read it twice. I hope i would be able to finish War and Peace before Anando Rock will be here in April. Lazyguru I recommend you to read Notes from the underground and hope that you can find few hard copies of Dostoevsky's books in Mumbai. More about Tolstoy and War and Peace in the evening, till than enjoy this quotes.


Here are few Quotes from the Dostoevsky's The notes from the underground. This novella is in public domain now and you can read the book by clicking the link below.

Project Gutenberg Public Domain Books - Notes from the under ground

• I am a sick man… I am a spiteful man. I am an unpleasant man. I think my liver is diseased.

• To be acutely conscious is a disease, a real, honest-to-goodness disease.

• [T]he best definition of man is: a being that goes on two legs and is ungrateful.
  • More punchy translation: If I had to define man it would be: a biped, ungrateful.

• When… in the course of all these thousands of years has man ever acted in accordance with his own interests?

• Two plus two equals five is not without its attractions.

• Yes - you, you alone must pay for everything because you turned up like this, because I'm a scoundrel, because I'm the nastiest, most ridiculous, pettiest, stupidest, and most envious worm of all those living on earth who're no better than me in any way, but who, the devil knows why, never get embarrassed, while all my life I have to endure insults from every louse - that's my fate. What do I care that you don't understand any of this?

• I could never stand more than three months of dreaming at a time without feeling an irresistible desire to plunge into society. To plunge into society meant to visit my superior, Anton Antonich Syetochkin. He was the the only permanent acquaintance I have had in my life, and I even wonder at the fact myself now. But I even went to see him only when that phase came over me, and when my dreams had reached such a point of bliss that it became essential to embrace my fellows and all mankind immediately. And for that purpose I needed at least one human being at hand who actually existed. I had to call on Anton Antonich, however, on Tuesday - his at-home day; so I always had to adjust my passionate desire to embrace humanity so that it might fall on a Tuesday.

• Every man has some reminiscences which he would not tell to everyone, but only to his friends. He has others which he would not reveal even to his friends, but only to himself, and that in secret. But finally there are still others which a man is even afraid to tell himself, and every decent man has a considerable number of such things stored away. That is, one can even say that the more decent he is, the greater the number of such things in his mind.

• The [Russian] romantic is always intelligent, and I only meant to observe that although we have had foolish romantics they don't count, and they were only so because in the flower of their youth they degenerated into Germans, and to preserve their precious jewel more comfortably, settled somewhere out there—by preference in Weimar or the Black Forest.

• It was not only that I could not become spiteful, I did not know how to become anything; neither spiteful nor kind, neither a rascal nor an honest man, neither a hero nor an insect. Now, I am living out my life in my corner, taunting myself with the spiteful and useless consolation that an intelligent man cannot become anything seriously, and it is only the fool who becomes anything.

• Granted I am a babbler, a harmless vexatious babbler, like all of us. But what is to be done if the direct and sole vocation of every intelligent man is babble, that is, the intentional pouring of water through a sieve?

• ...To care only for well-being seems to me positively ill-bred. Whether it’s good or bad, it is sometimes very pleasant, too, to smash things.

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This work is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago. You are free to read this book online or can download e-book from various sources online and by doing so you are not violating any copy right laws.