That’s all a man can hope for during his lifetime - to set an example - and when he is dead, to be an inspiration for history.

The line frames a life’s highest ambition not as personal gain but as moral exemplarity: to “set an example” while living, then—through the record others keep—to become “an inspiration for history.” It implies a two-stage legacy: conduct witnessed directly by contemporaries, and a posthumous afterlife shaped by collective memory and historical narrative. The phrasing also suggests humility about the limits of individual control: one can strive to act well, but becoming “an inspiration” depends on how later generations interpret and transmit that life. Read this way, the quote is a meditation on civic virtue and reputation, aligning public service with the hope of enduring moral influence.