“Patriotism is the conviction that your country is superior to all others because you were born in it.
“The return of my birthday, if I remember it, fills me with thoughts which it seems to be the general care of humanity to escape
“There are so many things about which some old man ought to tell one while one is little; for when one is grown one would know them as a matter of course
“Old age: A great sense of calm and freedom. When the passions have relaxed their hold, you may have escaped, not from one master but from many.