So real except he didn’t say that of course.

Firstly, it’s a very loose translation, or from my pov even a wrong one. I even doubt it’s a translation at all, rather a folk rendering of the famous aphorism, a meme, for I couldn’t find a copy of the book online with this exact rendering in English. What Dostoevsky wrote in the “Notes from the Underground” was:

“Но все-таки я крепко убежден, что не только очень много сознания, но даже и всякое сознание болезнь.”

which means:

But after all, I firmly believe that not only too much consciousness but even any consciousness is an illness.

I could also render consciousness as “self-awareness” meaning-wise but it’s nowhere near “thinking”, which turns it into some dumbed-down productivity advice to “stop thinking too much”. It’s about being tortured by introspection and conscience. I won’t get into “disease” and “illness” not really being the same word.

Secondly, it should be attributed to a character, the Underground Man. So yeah, it’s “so real”, if you’re an alienated, lonely, and bitter man who thinks consciousness / self-awareness prevents you from feeling good about yourself, so pitiful to discover morals exist.

We can argue all thoughts are inherintly autobiographical, and in the novella (which is written as a 1st person confession) Dostoevsky could channel a side of himself through a deliberately constructed dysfunctional person, but knowing he’s famous for perfectly writing anti-heros and characters whom he himself would despise, how can we take this particular quote of context of not only the character but the book? Should we accept this frivolity then maybe we can also agree that Dostoevsky himself said these so-real things:

I am still capable, as I always was, of desiring to do something good, and of feeling pleasure from it; at the same time I desire evil and feel pleasure from that too.

or

Kill some more, steal some more.

etm.

Some could say it’s a folklore, a meme, so what, Dostoevsky could say that as a cultural character! Well, sorry to break it for you but do please tell me in what way “don’t think so hard bruv” is Dostoevskian? It’s very much the opposite. Look, he’s even coming for you with a blade.

P.S. I’ve never seen this happening with any quote by any author, and most certainly I’ve never misquoted or mistranslated anything, for I’m a secular saint incapable of mistakes, especially when it comes to memes.