“Consciousness, for example, is infinitely higher than two times two. After two times two there would, of course, be nothing left – not only to do, but even to learn. The only possible thing to do then would be to stop up our five senses and immerse ourselves in contemplation. Well, but with consciousness, though the result comes out the same – that is, again there's nothing to do – at least one can occasionally whip oneself, and, after all, that livens things up a bit. It may be retrograde, but still it's better than nothing.”
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Fyodor Mikhaylovich Dostoyevsky was a Russian writer, essayist and philosopher, perhaps most recognized today for his novels Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov.
Dostoyevsky's literary output explores human psychology in the troubled political, social and spiritual context of 19th-century Russian society. Considered by many as a founder or precursor of 20th-century existentialism, his Notes from Underground (1864), written in the embittered voice of the anonymous "underground man", was called by Walter Kaufmann the "best overture for existentialism ever written."
His tombstone reads "Verily, Verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit." from John 12:24, which is also the epigraph of his final novel, The Brothers Karamazov.