Alexander the Great conquered Persia, but broke down and wept because his troops were too exhausted to push on to India.
Hugo Grotius, the father of modern international law, said at the last, "I have accomplished nothing worthwhile in my life."
John Quincy Adams, sixth President of the U.S., not a Lincoln, perhaps, but a decent leader wrote in his diary: "My life has been spent in vain and idle...
