>>82262445
The vanity of existence is revealed in the whole form existence assumes: in the infiniteness of
time and space contrasted with the finiteness of the individual in both; in the fleeting present as
the sole form in which actuality exists; in the contingency and relativity of all things; in continual
becoming without being; in continual desire without satisfaction; in the continual frustration of
striving of which life consists. Time and that perishability of all things existing in time that time
itself brings about is simply the form under which the will to live, which as thing in itself is
imperishable, reveals to itself the vanity of its striving. Time is that by virtue of which everything
becomes nothingness in our hands and loses all real value.

That which has been no longer is; it as little exists as does that which has never been. But
everything that is in the next moment has been. Thus the most insignificant present has over the
most significant past the advantage of actuality, which means that the former bears to the latter
the relation of something to nothing.