In his Petersburg world all people fell into two sorts. One, the lower sort, consisted of people who were foolish, commonplace, and above everything else ludicrous; they believed that one husband ought to live with one wife to whom he was properly married, that young girls ought to be chaste, that married women ought to be virtuous, men ought to be manly, continent, and resolute, that they ought to educate their children, earn their daily bread, pay their debts, and all kinds of similar rot. This sort was old-fashioned and ludicrous. There was another sort of genuine people, to whom his set belonged; these were, above all, handsome, elegant, gay, courageous and great-hearted; they abandoned themselves to their passions without blushing and laughed at everything else.

- Tolstoy, Anna Karenina