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Quotation from Notes from Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky

“which is better—cheap happiness or exalted sufferings?”

Fyodor Dostoevsky (spoken by The Underground Man)

Notes from Underground, Part II, Chapter X, trans. Constance Garnett (1918)

Portrait of Fyodor Dostoevsky

After Liza has gone, the narrator asks whether his insult may do her good by purifying her through suffering.

Citation: "which is better—cheap happiness or exalted sufferings?" — Fyodor Dostoevsky, Notes from Underground, Part II, Chapter X, trans. Constance Garnett (1918). (id notes-from-underground-q7)

Portrait: Portrait of Fyodor Dostoevsky by Vasily Perov, Vasily Perov, Public domain.

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