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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Phaedo by Plato: The memory of a great man, so far from being immortal, is really limited to
his own generation:--so long as his friends or his disciples are alive, so
long as his books continue to be read, so long as his political or military
successes fill a page in the history of his country. The praises which are
bestowed upon him at his death hardly last longer than the flowers which
are strewed upon his coffin or the 'immortelles' which are laid upon his
tomb. Literature makes the most of its heroes, but the true man is well
aware that far from enjoying an immortality of fame, in a generation or
two, or even in a much shorter time, he will be forgotten and the world
will get on without him.
4. Modern philosophy is perplexed at this whole question, which is
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