“ 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. ”
Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Notes from Underground (1864). copy citation
| Author | Fyodor Dostoyevsky |
|---|---|
| Source | Notes from Underground |
| Topic | care pleasure smashing |
| Date | 1864 |
| Language | English |
| Reference | |
| Note | |
| Weblink | http://www.gutenberg.org/files/600/600-h/600-h.htm |
Context
“Man is sometimes extraordinarily, 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 you are a man and have lived at all. As far as my personal opinion is concerned, 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. I hold no brief for suffering nor for well-being either. I am standing for … my caprice, and for its being guaranteed to me when necessary. Suffering would be out of place in vaudevilles, for instance; I know that.”
source
Meaning and analysis
