Quote of the Day by Fyodor Dostoevsky: ‘All men are divided into ‘ordinary’ and ‘extraordinary.’ Ordinary men have to live in submission, have no right to transgress the law…’

We have all, at some point, wanted to be the exception. The exception to the rule, the person whose circumstances are different, whose reasons are complicated, whose life cannot be judged by the same measure as everyone else's. Usually, it is a seductively innocent thought. But what happens when being exceptional becomes an excuse?

Another layer of difficulty arises when we question what happens when being “different” becomes a reason to believe that ordinary limits no longer apply. That tension sits at the heart of one of Fyodor Dostoevsky’s most unsettling observations in his 1866 novel Crime and Punishment about the jumbled role of power, morality and the human desire to see oneself as exceptional.

Quote of the Day by Fyodor Dostoevsky: “All men are divided into ‘ordinary’ and ‘extraordinary.’ Ordinary men have to live in submission, have no right to transgress the law, because, don’t you see, they are ordinary. But extraordinary men have a right to commit any crime and to transgress the law in any way, just because they are extraordinary.”

The dangerous theory behind the idea of exceptional people

In Crime and Punishment, the quote is Rodion Raskolnikov's dangerous philosophical justification for murder, first expressed in an article titled “On Crime.” He separates the people into two classes of "ordinary" and "extraordinary," where the ordinary people are expected to follow the existing laws while the extraordinary people are supposed to transcend those boundaries due to their uniqueness or importance.

With such an ideology, Raskolnikov justifies his murder by seeing it as a test of whether he belongs to the extraordinary. However, the novel disproves his theory, and his mental breakdown, as well as his inability to distinguish himself from the others, shows the destructive effects of placing oneself outside moral boundaries.

Dostoevsky's quote questions the privilege of feeling exceptional

Without a hitch, this quote makes a clear distinction between the two types of people: those whom the world demands obey its laws, and those whom they manage to convince themselves that their exceptional nature allows them to go beyond these lines.

The power of the statement lies in the disturbing logic that is underlying this distinction. Being talented, intelligent, ambitious, or accomplished, one feels like an outsider in the surrounding world. However, what does it mean if this feeling of exceptionality is used as an excuse for violation of the laws?

Why the idea still appears in everyday life

The dilemma is not confined to cases of criminal activity or rebelliousness. It can even arise in relatively minor situations. A successful individual may start to feel that the general standards apply only to others. A person who sees himself/herself as an extraordinary individual may not care about criticism. An individual who feels that his/her goals are more important than others' may start ignoring the limits set by rules.

Dostoevsky's statement becomes especially disturbing because the temptation is easy to recognize: the assumption that one's conditions, skills or ambitions qualify one for being an exception. The quote makes this kind of thinking unacceptable by showing its extreme form.

About the author Fyodor Mikhailovich: From a Moscow childhood to literary ambition

Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky was born on November 11, 1821, in Moscow. He was the second of seven children of Mikhail Andreevich and Maria Dostoevsky.

His father was a doctor, a member of the Russian nobility and the owner of serfs and a considerable estate near Moscow. Dostoevsky's childhood was marked by traumatic experiences. He witnessed the rape of a young female serf and suffered from epileptic seizures.

He was later sent to a boarding school, where he studied sciences, languages and literature. The death of his mother in 1837 was followed by his move to St. Petersburg, where he eventually graduated from the Military Engineering Academy.

He then served in the Tsar's government for a year before turning increasingly toward literary life.

Poor Folk changed the direction of Dostoevsky's life

Dostoevsky became active in St. Petersburg's literary circles. His early influences included Nikolay Gogol, and in 1844 he translated Honoré de Balzac's Eugenia Grande. His own literary career took a major step forward with the publication of Poor Folk in 1845. He became acquainted with writers including Ivan Turgenev and Nikolai A. Nekrasov, although those relationships deteriorated after they criticized his writing.

His literary career was soon interrupted by his involvement with a revolutionary movement. He was arrested in 1849, convicted of treason and sentenced to death.

A canceled execution and years in Siberia

Dostoevsky's execution was scheduled for a freezing winter day in St. Petersburg. He was blindfolded and placed before the firing squad, waiting to be shot, when the execution was cancelled at the last moment.

His sentence was commuted to imprisonment and exile in Siberia. He spent years in prison and exile, during which his health deteriorated and his epileptic seizures increased.

After ten years, he regained his title in the nobility and was permitted to return to St. Petersburg. His political and religious outlook had also changed, becoming increasingly conservative and religious. Yet his struggles continued. He developed an acute gambling problem and accumulated substantial gambling debts.

Depression, gambling and the novels that shaped his later career

Dostoevsky's later life contained several painful experiences that became closely intertwined with his writing. After a major journey through Western Europe in 1862, he wrote about Russia's need to learn from new ideas developing in Europe.

During another European trip in 1863, he lost his money through a combination of personal and gambling-related troubles. He returned home broke and fell into depression.

In 1864, he published Notes from Underground. That same year, his first wife died after six years of a childless marriage, and he adopted her son from her previous marriage.

A period of intense personal difficulty was followed by the publication of Crime and Punishment in 1866, widely regarded as one of his finest works and the source of today’s quote.

Crime and Punishment gave the idea of extraordinary people a darker form

The quote about “ordinary” and “extraordinary” people appears in Crime and Punishment, a novel written during a particularly difficult period in Dostoevsky's life.

The idea fits naturally into the novel's exploration of morality, transgression and the boundaries people construct around their own actions. The distinction between ordinary and extraordinary people raises a dangerous possibility: that someone might believe their importance gives them permission to violate rules that bind everyone else.

Dostoevsky continued exploring destructive ideas and divided personalities in later works, including The Idiot, The Devils and The Brothers Karamazov.

In The Brothers Karamazov, his final great novel, four central characters reflected different aspects of his own split personality: the humble monk Alyosha, the compulsive gambler Dmitri, the rebellious intellectual Ivan and their cynical father Fyodor Karamazov.

Dostoevsky died on February 9, 1881, from a lung hemorrhage caused by emphysema and epileptic seizures. His life, marked by literary success, imprisonment, exile, illness, gambling, grief and personal upheaval, gave his writing a sustained preoccupation with morality, suffering and the contradictions within human beings.