But maybe you worry that caring about your honor and reputation will distract you? How can that be, if you look back and think about how quickly everything gets forgotten? Think about the vast emptiness of time that came before us and will come after. Think about how hollow praise really is. Think about how people's judgments change all the time. Think about how tiny the place is where anyone even knows your name. The whole earth is just one small point. The part where people live is just a tiny piece of that. And in that tiny piece, how many people are there who will praise you? What kind of people are they anyway?
But the care of thine honour and reputation will perchance distract thee? How can that be, if thou dost look back, and consider both how quickly all things that are, are forgotten, and what an immense chaos of eternity was before, and will follow after all things: and the vanity of praise, and the inconstancy and variableness of human judgments and opinions, and the narrowness of the place, wherein it is limited and circumscribed? For the whole earth is but as one point; and of it, this inhabited part of it, is but a very little part; and of this part, how many in number, and what manner of men are they, that will commend thee?