" You are unwilling to pay that price, even knowing that the consolation prize is not only to learn every philosophy that has ever existed, but ones which have not yet been conceived? Even knowing that if you do not accept, you will soon cease to learn anything at all?" Raimund tilted his head, still staring into my eyes, and I knew he must see the tears filling them, though I held them back from falling." My friend," he whispered, " do you really believe your own words, I wonder? Your pain makes me think you know that death is not the end of learning, but only the beginning. "