"Once upon a time, in some out of the way corner of that universe which is dispersed into numberless twinkling solar systems, there was a star upon which clever beasts invented knowing. That was the most arrogant and mendacious minute of "world history," but nevertheless, it was only a minute. After nature had drawn a few breaths, the star cooled and congealed, and the clever beasts had to die. One might invent such a fable, and yet he still would not have adequately illustrated how miserable, how shadowy and transient, how aimless and arbitrary the human intellect looks within nature. There were eternities during which it did not exist. And when it is all over with the human intellect, nothing will have happened."
-- Nietzsche, On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense
...Bazarov was silent for a while. "Do you know what I'm thinking about?" he said at last, clasping his hands behind his head.
"No. What is it?"
"I'm thinking how happy life is for my parents! My father at the age of sixty can fuss around, chat about 'palliative measures,' heal people; he plays the magnanimous master with the peasants--has a gay time in fact; and my mother is happy too; her day is so crammed with all sorts of jobs, with sighs and groans, that she hasn't a moment to think about herself; while I... ."
"While you
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