Kirillov loves children, plays ball with a baby, drinks tea at all hours, and is calmly preparing to shoot himself to prove that he is free of the fear of death — “he who kills himself only to kill fear will at once become God.” The conspirators plan to use his suicide to cover their murder of Shatov. Albert Camus gives him a chapter in The Myth of Sisyphus as the logical suicide.
Lines to Remember
1 quotationsIf there is no God, then I am God.
Context & when to use it
Kirillov’s logic — if God is dead, the highest point of my self-will is to kill myself.
For the man-god, the Übermensch before Nietzsche, the logical suicide.
Explore Next
related by shared connectionsNikolai Stavrogin
The magnetic, empty aristocrat at the centre of Demons — everyone’s idol, nobody’s master, strength without belief.
Mokṣa
Liberation — release from the cycle of rebirth and from all suffering, the highest goal of human life in the Hindu and Jain traditions (and, as nirvāṇa, in Buddhism). Every Indian school defines it differently, and the arguments over what it is, and how it is won, are the backbone of Indian philosophy.
A Confession
Tolstoy’s account of his mid-life crisis — at the height of fame he could not answer “why live?” and nearly killed himself, until he found meaning in the faith of simple people.
Gitanjali
Tagore’s 1912 collection of devotional prose-poems, translated by himself from Bengali, which won the 1913 Nobel Prize — intimate songs to a God found in nature, in human labour, in love and in death.
Russian Nihilism
The 1860s movement of young Russian radicals who rejected tradition, religion, art and authority in the name of science, utility and the people.
The Madman with the Lantern
Nietzsche’s parable of the madman who runs into the marketplace at noon with a lantern crying “I seek God!” — and announces that we have killed him.