Israelites, Christians, and Muslims profess immortality, but the veneration they render this world proves they believe only in it, since they destine all other worlds, in infinite number, to be its reward or punishment.  The wheel of certain Hindustani religions seems more reasonable to me.  —Jorge Luis Borges, _The Immortal_ 

What?  Could perhaps, in spite of all "modern ideas" and prejudices of democratic taste, the victory of optimism, the achieved predominance of reason, practical and theoretical utilitarianism, like democracy itself, its contemporary—be a symptom of failing strength, of approaching old age, of physiological exhaustion? ...what is the meaning of—morality? ...all things move in a double cycle: everything which we now call culture, education, civilization will at some stage have to appear before the infallible judge, Dionysus.  —Friedrich Nietzsche, _The Birth of Tragedy_