The tiny space I occupy is so small compared to the rest of space, where I am not and where things have nothing to do with me; and the amount of time in which I get to live my life is so insignificant compared to eternity, where I’ve never been and won’t ever be  . . .
Yet in this atom, this mathematical point, blood circulates, a brain functions and desires something as well . . . How absurd! What nonsense! (Fathers and Sons, 1862, Katz translation)