MORE WORDS OF WISDOM

"The last French veteran of World War I, an Italian immigrant who lied about his age to join the Foreign Legion and fight in the trenches, died Wednesday aged 110, President Nicolas Sarkozy said. Lazare Ponticelli, the last of more than eight million men who fought under French colours in the 1914-18 war that tore Europe apart, died at the home he shared with his daughter in Kremlin-Bicetre, a Paris suburb. Reflecting on his wartime experiences, he once said: "You shoot at men who are fathers: war is completely stupid." (Yahoo News, 12 March) RD