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“for the systematic shaking of the foundations, for the systematic corrupting of society and all principles; in order to dishearten everyone and make a hash of everything, and society being thus loosened, ailing and limp, cynical and unbelieving, but with an infinite yearning for some guiding idea and for self-preservation—to take it suddenly into their hands, raising the banner of rebellion,”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, Demons

“The whole law of human existence consists in nothing other than a man’s always being able to bow before the immeasurably great. If people are deprived of the immeasurably great, they will not live and will die in despair. The immeasurable and infinite is as necessary for man as the small planet he inhabits … My friends, all, all of you: long live the Great Thought! The eternal, immeasurable Thought! For every man, whoever he is, it is necessary to bow before that which is the Great Thought. Even the stupidest man needs at least something great.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, Demons

“I kill myself to show my insubordination and my new fearsome freedom.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, Demons

“and I am unhappy, because it is my duty to proclaim self-will. Everyone is unhappy, because everyone is afraid to proclaim self-will. That is why man has been so unhappy and poor up to now, because he was afraid to proclaim the chief point of self-will and was self-willed only on the margins, like a schoolboy. I am terribly unhappy, because I am terribly afraid. Fear is man’s curse … But I will proclaim self-will, it is my duty to believe that I do not believe. I will begin, and end, and open the door. And save. Only this one thing will save all men and in the next generation transform them physically; for in the present physical aspect, so far as I have thought, it is in no way possible for man to be without the former God. For three years I have been searching for the attribute of my divinity, and I have found it: the attribute of my divinity is—Self-will!”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, Demons

“You understand now that the whole salvation for everyone is to prove this thought to them all. Who will prove it? I! I don’t understand how, up to now, an atheist could know there is no God and not kill himself at once. To recognize that there is no God, and not to recognize at the same time that you have become God, is an absurdity, otherwise you must necessarily kill yourself. Once you recognize it, you are king, and you will not kill yourself but will live in the chiefest glory. But one, the one who is first, must necessarily kill himself, otherwise who will begin and prove it?”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, Demons

“Listen: this man was the highest on all the earth, he constituted what it was to live for. Without this man the whole planet with everything on it is—madness only. There has not been one like Him before or since, not ever, even to the point of miracle. This is the miracle, that there has not been and never will be such a one. And if so, if the laws of nature did not pity even This One, did not pity even their own miracle, but made Him, too, live amidst a lie and die for a lie, then the whole planet is a lie, and stands upon a lie and a stupid mockery. Then the very laws of the planet are a lie and a devil’s vaudeville. Why live then, answer me, if you’re a man.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, Demons

“It is my duty to proclaim unbelief,â€� Kirillov was pacing the room. “For me no idea is higher than that there is no God. The history of mankind is on my side. Man has done nothing but invent God, so as to live without killing himself; in that lies the whole of world history up to now. I alone for the first time in world history did not want to invent God. Let them know once and for all.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, Demons

“To kill someone else would be the lowest point of my self-will, and there’s the whole of you in that. I am not you: I want the highest point, and will kill myself.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, Demons

“It is my duty to shoot myself because the fullest point of my self-will is—for me to kill myself.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, Demons

“If there is God, then the will is all his, and I cannot get out of his will. If not, the will is all mine, and it is my duty to proclaim self-will.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, Demons

“There were two, and suddenly there’s a third human being, a new spirit, whole, finished, such as doesn’t come from human hands; a new thought and a new love, it’s even frightening … And there’s nothing higher in the world!”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, Demons

“I also know that it was not you who ate the idea, but the idea that ate you, and so you won’t put it off.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, Demons

“Our most solid minds are now marveling at themselves: how could they suddenly have gone so amiss then?”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, Demons

“And yet the trashiest people suddenly gained predominance and began loudly criticizing all that’s holy, whereas earlier they had not dared to open their mouths, and the foremost people, who until then had so happily kept the upper hand, suddenly began listening to them, and became silent themselves; and some even chuckled along in a most disgraceful way.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, Demons

“But one or two generations of depravity are necessary now, an unheard-of, mean little depravity, that turns men into vile, cowardly, cruel, self-loving slime—that’s what’s needed!”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, Demons

“Only one thing is lacking in the world: obedience. The thirst for education is already an aristocratic thirst. As soon as there’s just a tiny bit of family or love, there’s a desire for property. We’ll extinguish desire: we’ll get drinking, gossip, denunciation going; we’ll get unheard-of depravity going; we’ll stifle every genius in infancy. Everything reduced to a common denominator, complete equality.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, Demons

“He’s got each member of society watching the others and obliged to inform. Each belongs to all, and all to each. They’re all slaves and equal in their slavery. Slander and murder in extreme cases, but above all—equality. First, the level of education, science, and talents is lowered. A high level of science and talents is accessible only to higher abilities—no need for higher abilities! Higher abilities have always seized power and become despots. Higher abilities cannot fail to be despots and have always corrupted rather than been of use; they are to be banished or executed. Cicero’s tongue is cut off, Copernicus’s eyes are put out, Shakespeare is stoned—this is Shigalyovism! Slaves must be equal: there has never yet been either freedom or equality without despotism, but within a herd there must be equality, and this is Shigalyovism!”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, Demons

“Now it is being suggested to us, through various strewn-about leaflets of foreign manufacture, that we close ranks and start groups with the sole purpose of universal destruction, under the pretext that however you try to cure the world, you’re not going to cure it, but by radically lopping off a hundred million heads,”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, Demons

“You at least are not angry with me?â€� Stavrogin gave him his hand. “Not at all!â€� Kirillov turned back to shake hands with him. “If the burden is light for me because of my nature, then maybe the burden is heavier for you because of your nature. Nothing to be much ashamed of, only a little.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, Demons

“You shouldn’t have offended him.â€� “And what should I have done?â€� “You should have killed him.â€� “You’re sorry I didn’t kill him?â€� “I’m not sorry about anything. I thought you really wanted to kill him. You don’t know what you’re seeking.â€� “I’m seeking a burden,â€� laughed Stavrogin.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, Demons

“it’s very easy for Pyotr Stepanovich to live in the world, because he imagines a man and then lives with him the way he imagined him.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, Demons

“If you found out that you believe in God, you would believe; but since you don’t know yet that you believe in God, you don’t believe”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, Demons

“There was perhaps more anger in Nikolai Vsevolodovich than in those two together, but this anger was cold, calm, and, if one may put it so, reasonable, and therefore the most repulsive and terrible that can be.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, Demons

“There will be entire freedom when it makes no difference whether one lives or does not live. That is the goal to everything.â€� “The goal? But then perhaps no one will even want to live?â€� “No one,â€� he said resolutely.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, Demons

“why is it that all these desperate socialists and communists are at the same time such incredible misers, acquirers, property-lovers, so much so that the more socialist a man is, the further he goes, the more he loves property … why is it?”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, Demons

“Don’t they understand that in order to acquire an opinion what is needed first of all is labor, one’s own labor, one’s own initiative and experience! Nothing can ever be acquired gratis. If we labor, we shall have our own opinion. And since we shall never labor, those who have been working for us all along will have the opinion instead—that is, Europe again, the Germans again, our teachers from two hundred years back. Besides, Russia is too great a misunderstanding for us to resolve ourselves, without the Germans and without labor. For twenty years now I’ve been ringing the alarm and calling to labor! I’ve given my life to this call, and—madman—I believed! Now I no longer believe, but I still ring and shall go on ringing to the end, to my grave; I shall pull on the rope until the bells ring for my funeral!”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, Demons

“They got everything out of books, and even at the first rumor from our progressive corners in the capital were prepared to throw anything whatsoever out the window, provided they were advised to throw it out.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, Demons

“In each case, with each voice of this many-voiced composition, we have sought “naturalâ€� English equivalents for the richly unnatural languages of the original.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, Demons

“Everything is inverted here: freedom ends in despotism, adoration turns to hatred, lucidity increases blindness, the first real act of the liberator of mankind—Nechaev or Verkhovensky—is the murder of his human brother. Seeking the greatest good, we do the greatest evil. The demons parody God’s world and invert its ends, playing for its loss. And the source of all these inversions, the primordial parody, is the replacement of the “authoritative image of a human beingâ€� by the would-be autonomous human will.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, Demons

“The “seed of the idea of destructionâ€� is the revolt against God; but that is over and done with, it is already forgotten, no one is concerned with it anymore. What follows is man’s replacement of God and the correction of His creation. This amounts to a declaration of the absurdity and meaninglessness of history, of historical reality as the unfolding of God’s will in time, but also as the lived life of mankind—that is, to a separation from the historical body of mankind. Reality itself, physical reality, begins to drain out of this radical “idea,â€� leaving only the drab abstraction of materialism.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, Demons