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Notes from Underground

by Fyodor Dostoevsky (1864)

russian dostoevsky existentialism

Strive very, very hard not to be the underground man! The underground man thinks of himself as a martyr wronged by society, and I think for a while I did agree and sympathize with him. Ultimately, however, I believe that Dostoevsky’s motive was to warn us to mature and recognise that the underground man is the victim of nothing but his own mind. He may have been wronged, but the reality is that he leads an exceptionally unhappy life, and therein lies the gravest danger of his mode of thought.

I also recommend reading:

  • The chapter on Notes from Underground from the biography Dostoevsky by Joseph Frank
  • On the Genealogy of Morals by Friedrich Nietzsche