A whole population of ...

A whole population of strangers inhabited and shaped that little body, lived in that mind and controlled its wishes, dictated its thoughts...The name was an abstraction, a title arbitrarily given, like \
A whole population of strangers inhabited and shaped that little body, lived in that mind and controlled its wishes, dictated its thoughts...The name was an abstraction, a title arbitrarily given, like "France" or "England," to a collection, never long the same, of many individuals who were born, lived, and died within him, as the inhabitants of a country appear and disappear, but keep alive in their passage the identity of the nation to which they belong.

Quotes from the same author

Experience is not what happens to you; it's what you do with what happens to you.
Experience is not what happens to a man. It is what a man does with what happens to him.
There is only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that's your own self.
Technological progress has merely provided us with more efficient means for going backwards.
No man ever dared to manifest his boredom so insolently as does a Siamese tomcat when he yawns in the face of his amorously importunate wife.