There are no uninteresting fates, and each man takes away the universe when he dies. - Dmitri Bilenkin

When the mind tries to guess the trajectory of a future moral act and concentrates too strenuously on contradictory concepts, the concepts themselves become unclear, because every concept is as deep-rooted and murky in its beginnings as the reality of life that gave rise to it. And the mind falters, determination slips away, and everything seems confused and wrong. That’s how thinking can sometimes destroy determination.

Here, now, in the deep Middle Ages, all this served as a safety valve. People experienced the illusion of being at one with themselves, with others, with that mystical being that was there in the church, watching over them and preserving them, chiding and blessing, enlightening and repressing, uplifting and reconciling. A completely different, anxiety-ridden emotional state, and an understandable, but repellent, spiritual world.

He’s not a nut. His presence, it seems, really does stimulate the creative capabilities. All right. So what? For millions of people, that’s what you would call a profession. Teachers do not produce anything of material or intellectual value themselves. They transmit knowledge, and most important, stimulate the mental and moral growth of children—real teachers, of course. That is the great meaning of their profession, to disseminate their thoughts and actions in such a way that they interweave like a golden thread in someone else’s life and then come alive unrecognized in the discoveries and achievements of the future—a profession of utmost importance for society.