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Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Dream of a Ridiculous Man

From Dostoevsky's Diary of a Writer, tr. Constance Garnett

     I AM a ridiculous person. Now they call me a madman. That would be a promotion if it were not that I remain as ridiculous in their eyes as before. But now I do not resent it, they are all dear to me now, even when they laugh at me - and, indeed, it is just then that they are particularly dear to me. I could join in their laughter - not exactly at myself, but through affection for them, if I did not feel so sad as I look at them. Sad because they do not know the truth and I do know it. Oh, how hard it is to be the only one who knows the truth! But they won't understand that. No, they won't understand it.... Read Complete 

     Cf. Fyodor Dostoevsky, Conversations of Father Zossima * Christodoulos of Athens and all Greece, Without Christianity Europe will be an enlarged marketplace  * Rilke, Letter to a Young Poet