Quote
By Fyodor Dostoevsky
And yet I think man will never renounce real suffering, that is, destruction and chaos. Why, suffering is the sole origin of consciousness.
- Source
- Notes from the Underground (translated by Constance Garnett), Part One, Chapter IX
- Read at
- Translated by Constance Garnett; Project Gutenberg text, eBook #600
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From Notes from the Underground (Part One, Chapter IX), in Constance Garnett's English translation. Spoken by the unnamed narrator, the embittered Underground Man, who is arguing against the idea that people want only comfort and reason. It is a character's voice, not Dostoevsky speaking in his own. Dostoevsky wrote in Russian, so this is the translator's wording.