Dostoevsky isn't simply observing that people tolerate pain—he's identifying something stranger and more uncomfortable: that we sometimes *choose* it, and with genuine fervor. The word "passionately" is the crucial detail; he's not describing mere resignation or the grim acceptance of hardship, but an active, almost erotic attachment to one's own torment. We see this when someone sabotages a promising relationship because the familiar ache of loneliness feels like home, or when a person nurses a grudge with the tenderness usually reserved for something precious. What makes this observation sting is that Dostoevsky recognizes we're not helpless victims of this impulse—we're often complicit in it, even intoxicated by it.