Sima's famous letter to his friend Ren An about his sufferings during the Li Ling Affair and his perseverance in writing Shiji is today regarded as a highly admired example of literary prose style, studied widely in China even today. The Letter to Ren An contains the quote, Men have always had but one death. For some it is as weighty as Mount Tai; for others it is as insignificant as a goose down. The difference is what they use it for. (人固有一死，或重于泰山，或輕于鴻毛，用之所趨異也。) This quote has become one of the most well-known in all of Chinese literature. In modern times, Chairman Mao paraphrased this quote in a speech in which he paid tribute to a fallen PLA soldier.