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There is, indeed, nothing more annoying than to be, for instance, wealthy, of good family, nice-looking, fairly intelligent, and even good-natured, and yet to have no talents, no special faculty, no peculiarity even, not one idea of one's own, to be precisely 'like other people.'
To have a fortune, but not the wealth of Rothschild; to be of an honourable family, but one which has never distinguished itself in any way; to have a pleasing appearance expressive of nothing in particular; to have a decent education, but to have no idea what use to make of it; to have intelligence, but no 'ideas of one's own; to have a good heart, but without any greatness of soul; and so on and so on.
These people may, like all other people, be divided into two classes: some of limited intelligence; others much cleverer. The first are happier.
The Idiot - Fyodor Mikhaylovich Dostoyevsky |