a pin's point in eternity...............

36.   In the universe Asia and Europe are but two small corners, all ocean's waters a drop, Athos a puny lump of earth, the vastness of time a pin's point in eternity.  All is petty, inconstant, and perishable.  All proceeds from the one source, springing either directly or derivatively from the universal sovereign Reason.  Even the lion's open jaws, the deadly poison, and all other things that do hurt, down to the bramble-bush and the slough, are by-products of something else that is itself noble and beautiful.   Do not think of them, then, as alien to That which you reverence, but remember the one origin that is common to them all.

-Marcus Aurelius,  Meditations, Book Six