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[...] I even think that the best definition of man is: a biped, ungrateful. [...]
lol
[...] give him such economic prosperity that he'll have nothing left to do but sleep, eat pastries, and busy himself with assuring the continuance of world history. And even then [...] He'll even risk his pastries and deliberately choose the most pernicious nonsense [...]
Man loves to create [...] But when, then, does he also passionately love destruction and chaos? Tell me that! [...] Can it be that he is so dedicated to destruction and chaos [...], because is himself instinctively afraid of achieving his goal and completing the edifice he is constructing? [...]
[...] man is a flighty, deplorable creature, and, like a chess player, he may be fond only of the process of achieving the goal, rather than of the goal itself. [...] perhaps the only goal toward which mankind is striving on earth consists of nothing but the continuity of the process of achieving--in other words, of life itself, and not the goal proper [...]
[...] he sails across oceans, he sacrifices his life in this quest, but, I would swear, he's somehow afraid of really finding, discovering it. For he feels that, as soon as he finds it, there will be nothing to search for. [...] He is fond of striving toward achievement, but not so very fond of the achieveent itself [...]
Another thing tormented me in those days: the fact that no one else was like me, and I was like no one else. I am alone, I thought, and they are everybody. And I worried about it.
young CF influenced by this book?
[...] Either a hero, or mud; there was no middle. Indeed, this is what ruined me, because, mired down in filth, I would console myself with the thought that at other times I was a hero, and the hero redeemed the filth. As if to say: it would be shameful for an ordinary man to get mired down, but a hero is too sublime to be completely defiled, hence he could wallow in filth.
"But why twenty-one?" I asked with some agitation, perhaps even with resentment. "Counting me, it will be twenty-eight rubles, not twenty-one."
It seemed to me that this sudden and unexpected offer to join in would be a handsome gesture; it would immediately win them over and raise me in their estimaton.
[...]
"But why? I'd think I'm also an old schoolmate, and, frankly, I resent being left out." I began to boil over again.
the most cringe one can possibly hope to ensure
I sat ignored by everyone, crushed and annihilated.
Good Lord, is this fit company for me? I thought. And what a fool I've made of myself before them! [...] The numbskulls think they've done me a favor by letting me sit at their table, they don't understand that it's I, I who am honoring them, and not the other way around.
[...] I was furious with myself but, naturally, she was the one who would pay. A terrible anger against her surged through my heart; I could have killed her. [...]