Notes from the Underground

I was a coward and a slave. I say this without the slightest embarrassment.  Every decent man of our age must be a coward and a slave.This is his normal condition. Of that I am firmly persuaded. He is made and constructed to that very end. And not only at the present time owing to some casual circumstances, but always, at all times, a decent man is bound to be a coward and a slave. It is the law of nature for all decent people all over the earth, If any one of them happens to be valiant about something, he need not be comforted nor carried away by that; he would cower just the same before something else. That is how it invariably and inevitably ends


Notes from the Underground, Part II, Chapter 1.  Dostoevsky.