Quote 294 of 497

To kill for murder is an immeasurably greater evil than the crime
itself.  Murder by legal process is immeasurably more dreadful than
murder by a brigand.  A man who is murdered by brigands is killed at
night in a forest or somewhere else, and up to the last moment he
still hopes that he will be saved.  There have been instances when a
man whose throat had already been cut, was still hoping, or running
away or beggin for his life to be spared.  But here all this last
hope, which makes it ten times easier to die, is taken away for
certain; here you have been sentenced to death, and the whole
terrible agony lies in the fact that you will most certainly not
escape, and there is no agony greater than that.
		-- Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Idiot, p. 20
		   isbn:0140440542

Tags: instances agony lastmoment lasthope brigands brigand fyodordostoyevsky