After an immense period of time had passed, human life began to flower on this planet. But with the passage of millennia, the peoples and the nations began to grow separate and distinct. There was a time to be born, a time to laugh, a time to suffer, and a time to die. Individuals, peoples, and nations, building and growing, succeeding one another until at last they inherited the Earth. They ruled the waters of the oceans and flew faster than the wind, and they crossed the mountains. And in voices of the storm and with light brighter than the sun, they demonstrated their power.
Then they looked back and saw in the distance their blue planet, their gentle protector, veiled by clouds. What energy has moved all this activity, what motor has propelled the human being through history, if not rebellion against death? From earliest times, death has dogged humankind's footsteps like a shadow. And since ancient times, death has found its way into the human heart and tried to conquer it.
Silo, Public Talk, Sports Pavilion, Madrid, September 27, 1981
