His life was now the life of a collector, and that gave it meaning. Evening after evening he would count and arrange his cuttings under the indulgent… - Karel Čapek

Within the next ten years Rossum's Universal Robots will produce so much wheat, so much cloth, so much everything that things will no longer have any value. Everyone will be able to take as much as he needs. There'll be no more poverty. Yes, people will be out of work, but by then there'll be no work left to be done. Everything will be done by living machines. People will do only what they enjoy. They will live only to perfect themselves... But before that some awful things may happen, Miss Glory. That just can't be avoided. But then the subjugation of man by man and the slavery of man to matter will cease. Never again will anyone pay for his bread with hatred and his life. There'll be no more laborers, no more secretaries. No one will have to mine coal or slave over someone else's machines. No longer will man need to destroy his soul doing work that he hates.

Monolog je hrozná věc, trochu jako sebeničení, něco jako přetínání pout, která vás vážou k životu; člověk, který vede monolog, už není jenom osamělý, nýbrž je vyřaděn nebo ztracen.

But old Rossum meant it literally.
He wanted to become a sort of scientific substitute for God. He was a fearful materialist, and that's why he did it all. His sole purpose was nothing more nor less than to prove that God was no longer necessary.