"It's just opposition that rejuvenates. Had I remained a senator, it would have been too easy for me; I would long since have become intellectually lazy and inconsistent. Nothing harms a thinking man more than lack of opposition; it is only since I found myself alone and no longer surrounded by youth that I was forced to become young again myself." Some years had to pass before I understood that trials challenge, persecution strengthens, and isolation exalts, provided they do not break one."