Pobrecito Pierre the Pessimist

He suffered from an unlucky faculty - common to many men, especially Russians - the faculty of seeing and believing in the possibility of good and truth, and at the same time seeing too clearly the evil and falsity of life to be capable of taking a serious part in it. Every sphere of activity was in his eyes connected with evil and deception. Whatever he tried to be, whatever he took up, evil and falsity drove him back again and cut him off from every field of energy.

Tolstoy, Leo. War and Peace. Translated by Constance Garnett. New York: Modern Library Paperback Edition, 2002, 612.