Not Whence Nor Whither

I am born into an environment -- I know not whence I came nor whither I go nor who I am.  This is my situation as yours, every single one of you.  The fact that everyone always was in this same situation, and always will be, tells me nothing.  Our burning question as to the whence and whither -- all we can ourselves observe about it is the present environment.  That is why we are eager to find out about it as much as we can.  That is science, learning, knowledge; it is the true source of every spiritual endeavour of man.

-- Erwin Rudolf Josef Alexander Schrödinger (1887 - 1961), Austrian physicist, one of the founders of quantum theory, and winner of the 1933 Nobel Prize in Physics, Science and Humanism (1951)