While all other things are uncertain, evanescent, and ephemeral, virtue alone is fixed with deep roots; it can neither be overthrown by any violence or moved from its place.
. . . for until that God who rules all the region of the sky . . . has freed you from the fetters of your body, you cannot gain admission here. Men were created with the understanding that they were to look after that sphere called Earth, which you see in the middle of the temple. Minds have been given to them out of the eternal fires you call fixed stars and planets, those spherical solids which, quickened with divine minds, journey through their circuits and orbits with amazing speed.
Some men make a womanish complaint that it is a great misfortune to die before our time. I would ask what time? Is it that of Nature? But she, indeed, has lent us life, as we do a sum of money, only no certain day is fixed for payment. What reason then to complain if she demands it at pleasure, since it was on this condition that you received it.
I never heard of an old man forgetting where he had buried his money. Old people remember what interests them: the dates fixed for their lawsuits, and the names of their debtors and creditors.
The gardener plants trees, not one berry of which he will ever see: and shall not a public man plant laws, institutions, government, in short, under the same conditions?