What is patriotism but the love of the food one ate as a child?

How many of us are able to distinguish between the odors of noon and midnight, or of winter and summer, or of a windy spell and a still one? If man is so generally less happy in the cities than in the country, it is because all these variations and nuances of sight and smell and sound are less clearly marked and lost in the general monotony of gray walls and cement pavements.

I like spring, but it is too young. I like summer, but it is too proud. So I like best of all autumn, because its leaves are a little yellow, its tone mellower, its colours richer, and it is tinged a little with sorrow and a premonition of death. Its golden richness speaks not of the innocence of spring, nor of the power of summer, but of the mellowness and kindly wisdom of approaching age. It knows the limitations of life and is content.

Of all the unhappy people in the world, the unhappiest are those who have not found something they want to do.

A tendency to fly too straight at a goal, instead of circling around it, often carries one too far.

What is patriotism but the love of the food one ate as a child?

To glorify the past and paint the future is easy, to survey the present and emerge with some light and understanding is difficult.