Fyodor Dostoyevsky - Notes From the Underground (1864) [I Like a Good Quote]

[quote][...], [b]one may say anything about the history of the world[/b] - anything that might enter the most disordered imagination. [b]The only thing one cannot say is that it is rational.[/b] The very word sticks in one's throat. And, indeed, this is even the kind of thing that continually happens. After all, [b]there are continually turning up in life moral and rational people, sages, and lovers of humanity, who make it their goal for life to live as morally and rationally as possible, to be, so to speak, a light to their neighbors, simply in order to show them that it is really possible to live morally and rationally in this world.[/b] And so what? [b]We all know that those very people sooner or later toward the end of their lives have been false to themselves, playing some trick, often a most indecent one.[/b] Now I ask you: What can one expect from man since he is a creature endowed with such strange qualities? Shower upon him every earthly blessing, drown him in bliss so that nothing but bubbles would dance on the surface of his bliss, as on a sea; give him such economic prosperity that he would have nothing else to do but sleep, eat cakes and busy himself with ensuring the continuation of world history and even then man, out of sheer ingratitude, sheer libel, would play you some loathsome trick. [b]He would even risk his cakes and would deliberately desire the most fatal rubbish, the most uneconomical absurdity, simply to introduce into all this positive rationality his fatal fantastic element. It is just his fantastic dreams, his vulgar folly, that he will desire to retain, simply in order to prove to himself[/b] [i](as though that were so necessary)[/i] [b]that men still are men and not piano keys, which even if played by the laws of nature themselves threaten to be controlled so completely that soon one will be able to desire nothing but by the calendar.[/b] And, after all, that is not all: [b]even if man really were nothing but a piano key, even if this were proved to him by natural science and mathematics, even then he would not become reasonable, but would purposely do something perverse out of sheer ingratitude, simply to have his own way. And if he does not find any means he will devise destruction and chaos, will devise sufferings of all sorts, and will thereby have his own way. He will launch a curse upon the world, and, as only man can curse [/b][i](it is his privilege, the primary distinction between him and other animals)[/i] then, after all, [b]perhaps only by his curse will he attain his object, that is, really convince himself that he is a man and not a piano key! If you say that all this, too, can be calculated and tabulated, chaos and darkness and curses, so that the mere possibility of calculating it all beforehand would stop it all, and reason would reassert itself - then man would purposely go mad in order to be rid of reason and have his own way![/b] I believe in that, I vouch for it, because, after all, [b]the whole work of man seems really to consist in nothing but proving to himself continually that he is a man and not an organ stop. It may be at the cost of his skin! But he has proved it; he may become a cave- man, but he will have proved it. And after that can one help sinning, rejoicing that it has not yet come, and that desire still depends on the devil knows what![/b][...]

[...] Gentlemen, I am tormented by questions; answer them for me. Now you, for instance, want to cure men of their old habits and reform their will in accordance with science and common sense. But how do you know, not only that it is possible, but also that it is desirable, to reform man in that way? And what leads you to the conclusion that it is so necessary to reform man's desires? In short, how do you know that such a reformation will really be advantageous to man? And go to the heart of the matter, why are you so sure of your conviction that not to act against his real normal advantages guaranteed by the conclusions of reason and arithmetic is al- ways advantageous for man and must be a law for all mankind? [...]

And why are you so firmly, so triumphantly convinced that only the normal and the positive - in short, only prosperity - is to the advantage of man? Is not reason mistaken about advantage? After all, perhaps man likes something besides prosperity? Perhaps he likes suffering just as much? Perhaps suffering is just as great an advantage to him as prosperity? Man is sometimes fearfully, passionately in love with suffering and that is a fact. There is no need to appeal to universal history to prove that; only ask yourself, if only you are a man and have lived at all. As far as my own personal opinion is concerned, to care only for prosperity seems to me somehow even ill- bred. Whether it's good or bad, it is sometimes very pleasant to smash things, too. After all, I do not really insist on suffering or on prosperity either. I insist on my caprice, and its being guaranteed to me when necessary. Suffering would be out of place in vaudeville, for instance; I know that. In the crystal palace it is even unthinkable; suffering means doubt, means negation, and what would be the good of a crystal palace if there could be any doubt about it? And yet I am sure man will never renounce real suffering, that is, destruction and chaos.

- Fyodor Dostoyevsky, [i]Notes From the Underground[/i] (1864)[/quote]


Orwells' view on a similair toppic (1940): https://similarworlds.com/4429978-I-Like-a-Good-Quote/3855186-George-Orwell-Review-of-Mein-Kampf-1940