They suffer, of course ... but then they live, they live a real life, not a fantastic one, for suffering is life. Without suffering what would be the pleasure of it?
 Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov (1880). copy citation

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Author Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Source The Brothers Karamazov
Topic life reality suffering pleasure pain
Date 1880
Language English
Reference
Note Translated by Constance Garnett
Weblink http://www.gutenberg.org/files/28054/28054-h/28054-h.html

Context

“So against the grain I serve to produce events and do what's irrational because I am commanded to. For all their indisputable intelligence, men take this farce as something serious, and that is their tragedy. They suffer, of course … but then they live, they live a real life, not a fantastic one, for suffering is life. Without suffering what would be the pleasure of it? It would be transformed into an endless church service; it would be holy, but tedious. But what about me? I suffer, but still, I don't live. I am x in an indeterminate equation. I am a sort of phantom in life who has lost all beginning and end, and who has even forgotten his own name.” source

Meaning and analysis

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