Politics are for foreigners with their endless wrongs and paltry rights. Politics are a lousy way to get things done. Politics are like God's infinite mercy a last resort.
There is something in the unselfish and self-sacrificing love of a brute which goes directly to the heart of him who has had frequent occasion to test the paltry friendship and gossamer fidelity of mere Man.
Death unites as well as separates it silences all paltry feeling.
So long as you don't feel life's paltry and a miserable business the rest doesn't matter happiness or unhappiness.
There can be no greater error than to expect or calculate upon real favors from nation to nation. It is an illusion which experience must cure which a just pride ought to discard.