“If only I believed that there is any backward and forward in human history! It’s like an octopus, with neither back nor front. For me there’s no word so devoid of meaning as ‘progress.’ What progress, Illarion Palych? Progress from what? To what? In those twenty-seven centuries, have people become better? kinder? or at least a bit happier? No, they’ve become worse, nastier, and unhappier! And all this thanks to beautiful ideas!”