"... and i seem to have such strength in me now, that i think i could stand anything, any suffering, only to be able to say and to repeat to myself every moment, 'i exist.' in thousands of agonies―i exist. i'm tormented on the rack―but i exist! though i sit alone on a pillar―i exist! i see the sun, and if i don't see the sun, i know it's there. and there's a whole life in that, in knowing that the sun is there."
—fyodor dostoevsky, the brothers karamazov
