What we have done for ourselves alone dies with us; what we have done for others and the world remains and is immortal.
The real sting here isn't the familiar notion that generosity outlasts us, but Pike's implicit claim that *selfishness is a form of death*—that a life spent accumulating private comfort is already a kind of dying. Notice he doesn't say selfish acts are forgotten; he says they *die with us*, as though they never truly existed at all. A surgeon who develops a better technique and teaches it to younger doctors sees her hands continue working long after her own hands still; a parent who raises a thoughtful child has literally extended their influence into futures they'll never see. What Pike understood is that immortality isn't reserved for the famous—it's available to anyone willing to let their effort belong to something larger than themselves.