War & Peace

"He had the unfortunate faculty common to many men, especially Russians, of seeing and believing in the possibility of goodness and truth, but of seeing the evil and falsity of life too clearly to be able to take a serious part in it. Every sphere of activity was, in his eyes, linked with evil and duplicity. Whatever he tried to be, whatever he engaged in, this evil and deception repulsed him and blocked every road to action. Yet he had to live, had to be occupied. It was too awful to bear the burden of these insoluble problems, and so he abandoned himself to the first distraction that offered itself in order to forget them. He frequented every kind of society, drank a great deal, bought pictures, engaged in building, and above all - read." - War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy