…there is nothing more vexing, for instance, than to be rich, of respectable family, of decent appearance, of rather good education, not stupid, even kind, and at the same time to have no talent, no particularity, no oddity even, not a single idea of one’s own, to be decidedly “like everybody else.” There is wealth, but not a Rothschild’s; an honorable family, but which has never distinguished itself in any way; a decent appearance, but very little expression; a proper education, but without knowing what to apply it to; there is intelligence, but with no ideas of one’s own; there is a heart, but with no magnanimity, etc., etc., in all respects. There are a great many such people in the world and even far more than it seems; they are divided, as all people are, into two main categories: one limited, the other “much cleverer.” The first are happier. For the limited “usual” man, for instance, there is nothing easier than to imagine himself an unusual and original man and to revel in it without any hesitation.
— Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Idiot