I am now sixty-seven. To bring my voyage to a happy conclusion . . . I would need to find ways of getting many people to understand what it would be for things to matter, and of getting these people to believe that certain things really do matter. I cannot hope to do these things by myself. But . . . I hope that, with art and industry, some other people will be able to do these things, thereby completing this voyage.

Parfit, quoted in ”How To Be Good” by Larissa MacFarquhar. PDF