Fyodor Dostoyevsky: from The Brothers Karamazov

And besides, what is suffering? I’m not afraid of it, even if it’s numberless. I’m not afraid of it now; I was before. You know, maybe I won’t even give any answers in court … And it seems to me there’s so much strength in me now that I can overcome everything, all sufferings, only in order to say and tell myself every moment: I am! In a thousand torments—I am; writhing under torture—but I am. Locked up in a tower, but still I exist, I see the sun, and if I don’t see the sun, still I know it is. And the whole of life is there—in knowing that the sun is.