What does he mean by this ?

People become soulless shells of their former selves by age 25. Crushed and defeated by this hellish joke we call life.

I have always dreamed that i will become something great like Caesar or Napoleon when i was a kid... until i went past 24 and facing with cruelty reality.

Same thing Uncle Ed had to say.
>I am certainly of opinion that genius can be acquired, or, in the alternative, that it is an almost universal possession. Its rarity may be attributed to the crushing influence of a corrupted society. It is rare to meet a youth without high ideals, generous thoughts, a sense of holiness, of his own importance, which, being interpreted, is, of his own identity with God. Three years in the world, and he is a bank clerk or even a government official. Only those who intuitively understand from early boyhood that they must stand out, and who have the incredible courage and endurance to do so in the face of all that tyranny, callousness, and the scorn of inferiors can do; only these arrive at manhood uncontaminated.

That he got fat and balding by 25 and died inside.