not insult, but protest

[worker201]

"Then you would sit down at another man's table and insult it and those who invited you.  Eh?"

"Certainly not insult, but protest.  I should do it with a good object.  I might indirectly assist the cause of enlightenment and propaganda.  It's a duty of every man to work for enlightenment and propaganda and the more harshly, perhaps, the better.  I might drop a seed, an idea . . . And something might grow up from that seed.  How should I be insulting them?  They might be offended at first, but afterwards they'd see I'd done them a service."

from Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment

A very strange passage, because the author is clearly making fun of both speakers.  And when enlightenment = propaganda, well that's a bathtub of jellyfish in and of itself.  But anyway, it struck me as being kinda cool.

[H_TeXMeX_H]

Ahh yes Dostoyevsky ... if you ever understand what he means you'll be in a padded room and straight jacket staring at the cieling all day long

[worker201]

He's pretty clever - somehow, he manages to make fun of his characters and empathize with them at the same time.

[H_TeXMeX_H]

It hurts my head to read his stuff But, yes sometimes I do get what he's saying ... or I think I do