Short then is the time which every man lives; and small the nook of the earth where he lives; and short too the longest posthumous fame, and even this only continued by a succession of poor human beings, who will very soon die, and who know not even themselves, much less him who died long ago.
Marcus Aurelius meditates on the fleeting nature of human life, the smallness of one's place, and the impermanence of posthumous fame.
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