When you ask me what the people here are like, I must answer: Like people everywhere! There is a certain monotony about mankind. Most people toil during the greater part of their lives in order to live, and the slender span of free time that remains worries them so much that they try by every means to get rid of it. O Destiny of Man!

May 17, 1771
The Sorrows of Young Werther
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe