SOURCE
I don't know whether the spider perhaps does not hate the fly he has marked and is snaring. Dear little fly! It seems to me that the victim is loved, or at least may be loved. Here I love my enemy. I am delighted, for instance, that she is so beautiful. I am delighted, madam, that you are so haughty and majestic. If you were meeker it would not be so delightful. You have spat on me -- and I am triumphant. If you were literally to spit in my face I should really not be angry because you -- are my victim; mine and not his. How fascinating was that idea! Yes, the secret consciousness of power is more insupportably delightful than open domination. If I were a millionaire I believe I should take pleasure in going about in the oldest clothes and being taken for a destitute man, almost a beggar, being jostled and despised. The consciousness of the truth would be enough for me.
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
RESOURCE
Found below in my comments to this post are more quotes by Fyodor Dostoyevsky.
Feel free to vote up the quotes in the comments that you like the most. Vote them all up if you like them equally :)
Sou um sonhador, mal conheço a vida real, e um momento como este é tão raro de ser conseguido por mim, que me seria absolutamente impossível não continuar a evocá-lo sempre em meus sonhos.
القدر، يحتاجون إلى أن يضربهم القدر ضربة تدمر
إنني أدرك اليوم أن رجالا مثلي يحتاجون إلى أن يضربهم
بدا، أبدا، أن أستطيع النهوض من تلقاء نفسي
كيانهم وتوقظ في أنفسهم قوى الحقيقة العليا. ما كان لي أ
Gentlemen, let us suppose that man is not stupid. (Indeed one cannot refuse to suppose that, if only from the one consideration, that, if man is stupid, then who is wise?) But if he is not stupid, he is monstrously ungrateful! Phenomenally ungrateful. In fact, I believe that the best definition of man is the ungrateful biped. But that is not all, that is not his worst defect; his worst defect is his perpetual moral obliquity, perpetual—from the days of the Flood to the Schleswig-Holstein period. Moral obliquity and consequently lack of good sense; for it has long been accepted that lack of good sense is due to no other cause than moral obliquity.
Put it to the test and cast your eyes upon the history of mankind. What will you see? Is it a grand spectacle? Grand, if you like. Take the Colossus of Rhodes, for instance, that’s worth something. With good reason Mr. Anaevsky testifies of it that some say that it is the work of man’s hands, while others maintain that it has been created by nature herself. Is it many-coloured? Maybe it is many-coloured, too: if one takes the dress uniforms, military and civilian, of all peoples in all ages—that alone is worth something, and if you take the undress uniforms you will never get to the end of it; no historian would be equal to the job. Is it monotonous?
May be it’s monotonous too: it’s fighting and fighting; they are fighting now, they fought first and they fought last—you will admit, that it is almost too monotonous. In short, one may say anything about the history of the world— anything that might enter the most disordered imagination. The only thing one can’t say is that it’s rational.
إنك حين تزرع البذرة، حين تقوم بعمل «البر والإحسان» في أي صورة، حين تقوم بفعل الخير الذي تقوم به، إنما تهب جزءاً من شخصيتك وتأخذ جزءاً من شخصية الآخر. فيكون بين وجوديكما تواصل. ويكفي أن تنتبه قليلاً
حتى تكافأ عن ذلك بالمعرفة، تكافأ باكتشافات لم تدر في خلدك قط. ولا بد أن تنتهي في الختام حتماً إلى أن تعد عملك الطيب علماً، فهو يسيطر على كل حياتك وربما ملأها تماما