I am a sick man... I am a spiteful man. I am an unattractive man. I think my liver is diseased.The Underground Man
Man is sometimes extraordinarily, passionately, in love with suffering...The Underground Man
The pleasure of despair. But then, it is in despair that we find the most acute pleasure, especially when we are aware of the hopelessness of the situation...everything is a mess in which it is impossible to tell what's what, but that despite this impossibility and deception it still hurts you, and the less you can understand, the more it hurts.The Underground Man
I swear to you gentlemen, that to be overly conscious is a sickness, a real, thorough sickness.The Underground Man
There is something at the bottom of every new human thought, every thought of genius, which can never be grasped because the very greatest simply doesn't submit to words.The Underground Man
Even if man 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...then, after all, 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!The Underground Man
I did not, of course, maintain that sort of independence out of any strength of character, but simply out of pettiness.The Underground Man
Which is better: cheap happiness or lofty suffering? Well, tell me.The Underground Man
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.The Underground Man
Yes, a man in the nineteenth century must and morally ought to be preeminently a characterless creature; a man of character, an active man is preeminently a limited creature.The Underground Man
Man is a creature that can get accustomed to anything, and I think that is the best definition of him.The Underground Man