— Crime and Punishment (1866), Part 3, Chapter 5
About this quote
हिन्दी में
बड़ी बुद्धि और गहरे हृदय के हिस्से में पीड़ा और दुख आना हमेशा तय है।
What it means
The sentence is a claim about cause: it says pain is not bad luck but the natural cost of a certain kind of mind. Note how strong the wording is — always and inevitable — while no mechanism is offered for why a large intelligence should hurt more than a small one.
It is worth keeping because it is the most seductive sentence of its type ever written, and the seduction is the point: it converts distress into a credential. As consolation it cannot be tested — if you suffer, you are deep; if you do not, the line has nothing to say to you. It reads as sympathy and works as flattery.
What it teaches you
Watch for explanations of your own pain that also rank you. If your account of why you feel bad has no version in which you are simply tired, badly treated or mistaken, it is a compliment wearing the clothes of a diagnosis — and it quietly removes the questions that help, which are what specifically caused this and what part of it can be changed.
अर्थ और सीख
वाक्य कहता है कि जिसकी बुद्धि बड़ी और हृदय गहरा हो, उसके हिस्से में पीड़ा आना तय है। ध्यान दीजिए कि यह दुख का कोई कारण नहीं बताता — यह दुख को योग्यता का प्रमाण बना देता है, और ऐसा दावा कभी गलत सिद्ध नहीं किया जा सकता। सबक़ यह है कि अपनी तकलीफ़ को अपनी विशेषता मान लेने से पहले पूछिए कि वह तकलीफ़ आई कहाँ से और उसमें बदल क्या सकता है।
Where it comes from
Raskolnikov, arguing his theory that extraordinary men may step over ordinary law. He is not describing suffering as a punishment; he is describing it as a symptom of the very intelligence he claims for himself.
Dostoevsky lets the idea sound impressive, then spends the rest of the novel testing it on a man who cannot bear what he has done. The theory survives. Raskolnikov does not.
