“ Immense obstacles surround the greatest pleasures of mankind; not our individual delights, but the systems that make of our rarest sensations a habit, collect them, make them fertile for us, and create a dramatic life within our own, demanding an exorbitant and immediate dissipation of our strength.
‘War, government, the arts, are corruptions as far beyond human reach as is debauchery. ”
 Honoré de Balzac, The Wild Ass’s Skin (1831). copy citation