Vanity of vanities, all is vanity … and yet He has also set eternity in the hearts of men:
Here in the city man dies oppressed at heart, man perishes with despair in his heart. I have looked over the wall and I see the bodies floating on the river, and that will be my lot also. Indeed I know it is so, for whoever is tallest among men cannot reach the heavens, and the greatest cannot encompass the earth. Therefore I would enter that country: because I have not established my name stamped on brick as my destiny decreed, I will go to the country where the cedar is cut [to fight Humbaba]. I will set up my name where the names of famous men are written.
~Epic of Gilgamesh
