Meditations 9:30

To see them from above: the thousands of animal herds, the rituals, the voyages on calm or stormy seas, the different ways we come into the world, share it with one another, and leave it. Consider the lives led once by others, long ago, the lives to be led by others after you, the lives led even now, in foreign lands. How many people don't even know your name.

How many will soon have forgotten it. How many offer you praise now—and tomorrow, perhaps, contempt.

That to be remembered is worthless. Like fame. Like everything.