Oh, we can also be good and beautiful, but only when we are feeling good and beautiful ourselves. We are, on the contrary, even possessed-precisely possessed-by the noblest ideals, but only on condition that they be attained by themselves, that they fall on our plate from the sky, and, above all, gratuitously, gratuitously, so that we need pay nothing for them. We like very much to get things, but terribly dislike having to pay for them, and so it is with everything. Oh, give us, give us all possible good things in life {precisely all, we won't settle for less} and, more particularly, do not obstruct our character in any way, and then we, too, will prove that we can be good and beautiful. We are not greedy, no, but give us money, more and more money, as much money as possible, and then you will see how generously, with what scorn for filthy lucre, we can throw it away in one night of unrestrained carousing. And if we are not given any money, we will show how we manage to get it anyway when we want it badly enough.
( Fyodor Dostoyevsky )
[ The Brothers Karamazov ]
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