Quotes / Fyodor Dostoevsky / Demons
If there is no God, then I am God.
— Fyodor Dostoevsky, spoken by Kirillov
Genuine Found word for word in the work, in the original and in a public-domain translation.Draft entry, not yet reviewed
Если нет бога, то я бог. … Если бог есть, то вся воля его, и из воли его я не могу. Если нет, то вся воля моя, и я обязан заявить своеволие.
If there is no God, then I am God. … If God exists, all is His will and from His will I cannot escape. If not, it's all my will and I am bound to show self-will.
- Work
- Demons, 1872
- Where
- Part 3, chapter 6 ("A Busy Night"), section 2
- Speaker
- Kirillov
- To
- Pyotr Verkhovensky
The scene
On the night Shatov is murdered, Pyotr Verkhovensky comes to make Kirillov keep his promise: to shoot himself and leave a note taking the blame for the killing. Kirillov, contemptuous and feverish, explains his idea: man invented God so as not to kill himself, and the highest proof of self-will, the attribute of the new man-god, is to kill oneself without cause. He writes the note at Pyotr's dictation and then, after a terrible scene in the dark, shoots himself.
Read it in the text
Часть третья · II
- Я всегда был удивлен, что все остаются в живых, -- неслыхал его замечания Кириллов.
- Гм, положим, это идея, но...
- Обезьяна, ты поддакиваешь, чтобы меня покорить. Молчи, ты не поймешь ничего. Если нет бога, то я бог.
- Вот я никогда не мог понять у вас этого пункта: почему вы-то бог?
- Если бог есть, то вся воля его, и из воли его я не могу. Если нет, то вся воля моя, и я обязан заявить своеволие.
PART III · II · Constance Garnett
"I've always been surprised at every one's going on living," said Kirillov, not hearing his remark.
"H'm! Admitting that's an idea, but..."
"You ape, you assent to get the better of me. Hold your tongue; you won't understand anything. If there is no God, then I am God."
"There, I could never understand that point of yours: why are you God?"
"If God exists, all is His will and from His will I cannot escape. If not, it's all my will and I am bound to show self-will."
What it says
If there is no God, then all will is man's own, and the man who sees this must assert his will to the full, which for Kirillov means killing himself.
How it is misread
Sometimes quoted as Dostoevsky's own, or run together with 'If there is no God, everything is permitted'. It is the logic of a character the novel follows to a horrible, squalid end, and his suicide serves only to cover the murder Pyotr has organised.
Descent
- Taken up byAlbert Camus, 1942The chapter 'Kirilov' in The Myth of Sisyphus reads Kirillov's 'logical suicide' as the purest case of the absurd: he kills himself to become god.
Tags
What it is made of
Nearby
- Man is unhappy because he doesn't know he's happy. It's only that. related
- If there is no God, everything is permitted. alike 52%
- Starting from unlimited freedom, I arrive at unlimited despotism. alike 46%
- The whole work of man really seems to consist in nothing but proving to himself every minute that he is a man and not a piano-key! alike 42%
- To go wrong in one's own way is better than to go right in someone else's. alike 40%
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