Age has brought me little if any wisdom. I knew more at twenty-one than at forty.  Why is that? Because at age forty I was dumb enough to believe I knew anything at all. The only lesson I've learned in life is that the human personality does not change, and our propensity for destroying the earth and our fellow man is stronger and more wanton than it has ever been, and if the incineration of our cities and civilians and the increased lethality of our weapons during the last one hundred years has not taught us that, nothing will. 

Every Cloak Rolled In Blood

James Lee Burke