"Man has a mind that soars out to speculate about atoms and infinity, who can place himself imaginatively at a point in space and contemplate bemusedly his own planet. This immense expansion, this dexterity, this ethereality, this self-consciousness gives to man literally the status of a small god in nature. Yet, at the same time man is a worm and food for worms."
— Ernest Becker, American anthropologist, born 1924