Then he said: "The difference between man and me?
The difference between a mortal and an immortal?
between a cloud and a spirit ?" He picked up a wood-louse that was creeping along a piece of bark: "What is the difference between Caesar and this ?" I said, "One cannot compare things which by their nature and by the interval between them are not comparable." "You have answered your own question," he said.

"I will expand it.

Man is made of dirt--I saw him made.

I am not made of dirt.

Man is a museum of diseases, a home of impurities; he comes to-day and is gone to-morrow; he begins as dirt and departs as stench; I am of the aristocracy of the Imperishables.