„For, if one only forgets one's calling of tsar, workman, judge, manufacturer, professor, savant, artist, member of a family, and remembers only one thing - that one is a man who has recently appeared in this world which is incomprehensible to him and who will have to leave it shortly: there is no rational aim in this life, and it is not worthwhile doing anything. Everything is petty, unnecessary, everything that one may do will be purposeless, but at the same time it is necessary to do something as long as is alive. Man's activity during his life in this world resembles a horse on a treadmill. The horse cannot help going and thus setting the wheel in motion. Man cannot help doing something any by that activity participates in the progress of the whole world. So that in spite of life's being purposeless for me, for man and for the whole world - look at it as I may - I am compelled to act. Some power has put me in such a position that I must act not for myself and not for the world, but for something incomprehensible. The essence of every true religion lies in this conception.“