Sierra Allred’s Reviews > Notes from a Dead House > Status Update

“Tyranny is a habit; it is endowed with development, and develops finally into an illness. I stand upon this, that the best of men can, from habit, become coarse and stupefied to the point of brutality. Blood and power intoxicate… Man and citizen perish forever in the tyrant, and the return to human dignity, to repentance, to regeneration, becomes almost impossible for him.” -pg. 197

“You might even wonder, watching these improvised actors, and involuntarily think to yourself: how much power and talent sometimes perishes in our Russia almost for nothing, in prison and in hardship!” -pg. 161

“Every man, whoever he may be and however humiliated, still requires, even if instinctively, even if unconsciously, respect for human dignity. The prisoner himself knows that he is a prisoner, an outcast, and he knows his place before his superior; but no brands, no fetters will make him forget that he is a human being.” -pg. 111

“…mindful neither of his crime nor of his punishment.” -pg. 9. But Dostoevsky, this is Notes from a Dead House, not Crime and Punishment 😏😎

On a pretty good roll of essay/memoir adjacent in the morning with my coffee, History nonfiction audiobook while I work and do chores throughout the day, and fun, silly fiction novel before bed at night