"I am often asked what my attitude is toward mankind: do I pity it or do I
despise it? My answer is: neither. It exists objectively for me and despite
its immaturity it is the personification of physical life. My attitude is
therefore one of a sort of strange rapture, rather like, say, the traveller
who gazes on the mighty eruption of a volcano and exclaims: 'What a wonderful
sight!', although he finds it rather terrifying. To me, makind is just that
- a volcano which, although it wreaks destruction on surronding nature,
possesses, in its own way, by virtue of its immensity, something that is
not exactly beautiful, but... something whose power cannot be denied, and
consequently, something which it cannot be denied possesses a certain beauty".
Oleg Tselkov