Anna Karenina

I subscribe to a wonderful service called DailyLit, which divvies up open domain works and e-mails you a piece each day. It's a wonderful way for me to force myself to read classic books that I would never otherwise read; I'm currently reading Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, which is brilliant. I wanted to quote a paragraph here that is brilliantly insightful and that I simply cannot get out of my mind since I read it.

Stepan Arkadyevitch took in and read a liberal paper, not an extreme one, but one advocating the views held by the majority. And in spite of the fact that science, art, and politics had no special interest for him, he firmly held those views on all these subjects which were held by the majority and by his paper, and he only changed them when the majority changed them--or, more strictly speaking, he did not change them, but they imperceptibly changed of themselves within him.

How many of the opinions that we hold come to us in this manner? We don't have the time to form reasoned opinions on every matter, and so we flock sheep-like in the direction dictated by the opinion makers at the head of whatever group we identify with.

Short version: Tolstoy rocks. Tolstoy is hard core. Read Tolstoy.