“And what is it in us that is mellowed by civilization? All it does, I’d say, is to develop in man a capacity to feel a greater variety of sensations. And nothing, absolutely nothing else. And through this development, man will yet learn how to enjoy bloodshed. Why, it has already happened.... Civilization has made man, if not always more bloodthirsty, at least more viciously, more horribly bloodthirsty.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky , book Notes from Underground

Part 1, Chapter 7 (page 23)
Notes from Underground (1864)

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Fyodor Dostoyevsky 155

Russian author 1821–1881

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“Civilization has made man, if not always more bloodthirsty, at least more viciously, more horribly bloodthirsty”

Fyodor Dostoyevsky book Notes from Underground

Part 1, Chapter 7 (page 23)
Notes from Underground (1864)
Context: And what is it in us that is mellowed by civilization? All it does, I’d say, is to develop in man a capacity to feel a greater variety of sensations. And nothing, absolutely nothing else. And through this development, man will yet learn how to enjoy bloodshed. Why, it has already happened.... Civilization has made man, if not always more bloodthirsty, at least more viciously, more horribly bloodthirsty.

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Source: Book 1, Chapter 4 (p. 509)

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“War has been with us ever since the dawn of civilization. Nothing has been more constant in history than war.”

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“In the development of intelligence nothing can be more "basic" than learning how to ask productive questions.”

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Context: In the development of intelligence nothing can be more "basic" than learning how to ask productive questions. Many years ago, in Teaching as a Subversive Activity, Charles Weingartner and I expressed our astonishment at the neglect shown in school toward this language art.... The "back to the basics" philosophers rarely mention it, and practicing teachers usually do not find room for it in their curriculums. …all our knowledge results from questions, which is another way of saying that question-asking is our most important intellectual tool… There are at present no reading tests anywhere that measure the ability of students to address probing questions to the particular texts they are reading... What students need to know are the rules of discourse which comprise the subject, and among the most central of such rules are those which govern what is and what is not a legitimate question.