From Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821–1881), Russian novelist, short story writer, essayist, journalist and philosopher, The House of the Dead (1862):
Whoever has experienced the power and the unrestrained ability to humiliate another human being automatically loses his own sensations. Tyranny is a habit, it has its own organic life, it develops finally into a disease. The habit can kill and coarsen the very best man or woman to the level of a beast. Blood and power intoxicate … the return of the human dignity, repentance and regeneration becomes almost impossible.”
