Notes from Underground

I swear, gentlemen, that to

be too conscious is an illness—a real thorough-going illness.

For man’s everyday needs, it would have been quite enough

to have the ordinary human consciousness,

It was not only that I could not become spiteful, I did not

know how to become anything; neither spiteful nor kind,

neither a rascal nor an honest man, neither a hero nor an

insect.