For thus continuously thou wilt look at human things as smoke and nothing at all; especially if thou reflectest at the same time that what has once changed will never exist again in the infinite duration of time.
This passage encourages viewing human affairs as fleeting and insignificant, emphasizing that what changes is gone forever.
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The safety of life is this, to examine everything all through, what it is itself, that is its material, what the formal part; with all thy soul to do justice and to say the truth.
But everything else, whether it is in the power of thy will or not, is only lifeless ashes and smoke.
How small a part of the boundless and unfathomable time is assigned to every man, for it is very soon swallowed up in the eternal!
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