“Man is unhappy because he doesn't know he's happy. It's only that.”
Part II, Ch. I
The Possessed (1872)
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Fyodor Dostoyevsky 155
Russian author 1821–1881Related quotes
“The idiot is indeed the good man, but only because he doesn't know any better.”
Sons Come and Go, Mothers Hang in Forever (1976)
“No man chooses evil because it is evil; he only mistakes it for happiness, the good he seeks.”
Variant: No man chooses evil because it is evil; he only mistakes it for happiness, the good he seeks.
“No man chooses evil because it is evil; he only mistakes it for happiness, the good he seeks.”
A Vindication of the Rights of Men (1790)
“Whether happy or unhappy, life is the only treasure man possesses”
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The Story of My Life (trans. Sartarelli/Hawkes 2001), Preface, p. 10
Referenced
Variant: [H]appy or miserable, life is the only blessing which man possesses[. ]
Author’s Warning
Source: Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn, The Dragonbone Chair (1988)
"Birth" (1947), trans. Peter Dale Scott
Daylight (1953)
Context: He doesn't know birds live
In another time than man.
He doesn't know a tree lives
In another time than birds
And will grow slowly
Upward in a gray column
Thinking with its roots
Of the silver of underworld kingdoms.
“If a man doesn't know how to dance he doesn't know how to make love, there I said it!”