Cast from thee all other things and hold fast to a few precepts such as
these: forget not that every man's real life is but the present
moment,--an indivisible point of time,--and that all the rest of his
life hath either passed away or is uncertain. Short, then, the time that
any man may live; and small the earthly niche wherein he hath his home;
and short is longest fame,--a whisper passed from race to race of dying
men, ignorant concerning themselves, and much less really knowing thee,
who died so long ago. (Book iii., § 10.)