Is it not dreadful and humiliating to think that Moses went up on Sinai, the Greeks built their lovely temples, the Romans waged their Punic Wars, Alexander, that handsome genius in a plumed helmet, fought his battles, apostles preached, martyrs suffered, poets sang, artists painted, knights shone at tournaments—only that some French, German or Russian bourgeois garbed in unsightly and absurd clothes should enjoy life “individually” or “collectively” on the ruins of all this vanished splendor?

— Konstantin Leontiev