From Notes from the Underground by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Oh, if only it was only out of laziness that I do nothing! Lord, how much I should respect myself then! I should respect myself because I had something inside me, even if it was only laziness; I should have at any rate one positive quality of which I could be sure. Question: what is he? Answer: a lazy man; and it really would be very pleasant to hear that said of me. It would mean being positively defined, it would mean that there was something that could be said of me. 'A lazy man!'—that is a name, a calling, it's positively a career! Don't laugh, it's true. Then I should be by right a member of the very best club, and have no other occupation than nursing my self-esteem. I once knew a gentleman who prided himself all his life on being a connoisseur of Chateau Lafite. He considered that to be his positive merit, and never doubted himself. He died not so much with a quiet as with a truimphant conscience, and he was quite right.
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