Arthur Schopenhauer. The insignificance and sorrows of life (№ 924)

This nothingness all the objects of our will is clearly revealed to the intellect, which has its roots in the individual, first of all, in time. It is the form in which the insignificance of things opens up before us as their frailty: it is this time, under our hands turns into nothing all our pleasure and joy, and we are then surprised to ask ourselves where they went. The nothingness is is therefore the only objective element in time, in other words, only it is a nothingness, is what corresponds to him of time in the inner essence of things, what it is expression. That is why time is a priori necessary form of all our perceptions: it should be everything, even ourselves. And because our life is primarily like a payment that the full calculated amount of copper cents and which have yet to repay: the penny days, that redemption is death. Because in the end time is estimation, which makes the nature to all his creatures: it turns them into nothing.