"The speed with which all of them vanish— the objects in the world, and the memory of them in time. And the real nature of the things our senses experience, especially those that entice us with pleasure or frighten us with pain or are loudly trumpeted by pride. To understand those things— how stupid, contemptible, grimy, decaying, and dead they are— that’s what our intellectual powers are for."

 Meditations by Marcus Aurelius