Wherefore, if any love the applause of fame, it shall not profit him to publish his name among many peoples.

Then, each must be content to have the range of his glory limited to his own people; the splendid immortality of fame must be confined within the bounds of a single race.
'Once more, how many of high renown in their own times have been lost in oblivion for want of a record! Indeed, of what avail are written records even, which, with their authors, are overtaken by the dimness of age after a somewhat longer time?
But ye, when ye think on future fame, fancy it an immortality that ye are begetting for yourselves.

Why, if thou scannest the infinite spaces of eternity, what room hast thou left for rejoicing in the durability of thy name?
Verily, if a single moment's space be compared with ten thousand years, it has a certain relative duration, however little, since each period is definite.

But this same number of years--ay, and a number many times as great--cannot even be compared with endless duration; for, indeed, finite periods may in a sort be compared one with another, but a finite and an infinite never.

So it comes to pass that fame, though it extend to ever so wide a space of years, if it be compared to never-lessening eternity, seems not short-lived merely, but altogether nothing.