The future is only an illusion inferred from our present state. What is important is not the length of life, but the depth of life. What is most important is not to make life longer, but to take your soul out of time, as every sublime act does. Only then does your life become fulfilled. And do not ask yourself questions about time. Jesus did not explain a thing about the eternity of life, but his influence brought people to the eternal. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
…from Leo Tolstoy’s A Calendar of Wisdom [Kindle].
Here’s more Emerson.