"...the futility of human pretentions"

Robert Harris wrote this in  "Pompeii," the fictionalized account of the events around the destruction of Pompeii when the

volcano erupted:

"A comfort to think that these things (nature) are somehow connected to our behavior: if only we had lived better or more frugally our virtue would be rewarded. But nature sweeps forward, indifferent. We see the futility of human pretentions."