I think that a man should not live beyond the age when he begins to deteriorate, when the flame that lighted the brightest moment of his life has weakened.

The remark frames longevity as less important than vitality, clarity, and purpose. It suggests an ethic of self-limitation: once a person’s capacities decline—when the inner “flame” that once animated their best work dims—continued life can feel like a kind of diminishment rather than an achievement. Read in a political register, it also gestures toward anxieties about aging leadership and the fear of outliving one’s historical moment, when authority and effectiveness may erode. The metaphor of a weakening flame emphasizes not mere physical aging but the fading of the qualities (conviction, energy, imagination) that made one’s life most meaningful.