Paradox

A statement that seems to contradict itself or common sense but, once thought through, reveals a truth.

In Notes from Underground

I swear, gentlemen, that having too much consciousness is a disease, a real, complete disease.

Calling «a disease» what would be a virtue, consciousness, contradicts common sense. The adjective «complete» and the oath reinforce the shock: lucidity, which should cure, is presented as the illness.

Part One: The Underground, the underground man

the pleasure came precisely from the all-too-vivid consciousness of one's own humiliation.

Part One: The Underground, the underground man

His own will, willful and free, his own caprice, however wild it may be, his fantasy, irritated at times even to madness: all of this is precisely that omitted advantage, the most advantageous of advantages, which fits into no classification and because of which all systems and theories shatter and go to the devil.

Part One: The Underground, the underground man

But that was precisely why I was enraged: I knew for certain that I would go; that I would go on purpose; and the more indelicate, the more indecorous it was to go, the faster I would go.

Part Two: Apropos of Wet Snow, the underground man