Marcus Aurelius was emperor of Rome, and for years led its armies himself.

In camp he dated a book of his Meditations: in the country of the Quadi.

He was born on 26 April 121 and died on 17 March 180.

That is 21,510 days of life.

If you should live three thousand years, he wrote, or ten thousand,

against them, his own life is 1.96% of the first, 0.59% of the second.

Yet the longest life and the shortest lose the same thing at death.

Only the present: no one can lose what he does not have.

Asia and Europe are corners of the world; the whole sea, one drop.

And all present time is but one point of eternity.