When you're tired of listening to living idiots.
Étienne de La Boétie (1 November 1530 – 18 August 1563) was a French magistrate, classicist, writer, poet, and political theorist, best remembered for his posthumously published work Discourse on Voluntary Servitude.
Little by little, the people grow accustomed to irreverence towards the magistrate, [...] learn to disobey willingly, and let themselves be led by the bait of liberty, or rather license, which is the sweetest and most tantalizing poison in the world.
c. 1552-1553
Source: Discourse on Voluntary Servitude/1922 Edition
The populace draws the false conclusion that one must obey superiors only in things good in themselves, and then attributes to itself the judgment of what is good or bad, and finally [...] has no other law than its own conscience.
c. 1552-1553
Source: Discourse on Voluntary Servitude/1922 Edition
It is impossible to honor those one despises, nor to willingly obey those one hates and holds in horror.
c. 1552-1553
Source: Discourse on Voluntary Servitude/1922 Edition
A bad example is the most pernicious doctrine [...] for the indiscreet populace, who thinks that whatever evil is done and suffered is permissible.
c. 1552-1553
Source: Discourse on Voluntary Servitude/1922 Edition
The multitude believes more in persons than in things, and [...] is more persuaded by the authority of the speaker than by the reasons he gives.
c. 1552-1553
Source: Discourse on Voluntary Servitude/1922 Edition
Often, by wanting to keep everything, one loses everything, and by being unwilling to part with false customs [...] one gives enemies the opportunity to shake the good [...] traditions.
c. 1552-1553
Source: Discourse on Voluntary Servitude/1922 Edition
By thinking to extirpate opinions with the sword, we act as with the Hydra, where for one head cut off, seven more would grow back.
c. 1552-1553
Source: Discourse on Voluntary Servitude/1922 Edition
No dissension is so great or so dangerous as that which comes from religion: it separates citizens, neighbors, friends, relatives [...], it breaks alliances [...] and penetrates to the depths of hearts to [...] entrench irreconcilable hatreds.
c. 1552-1553
Source: Discourse on Voluntary Servitude/1922 Edition
A divided city is half taken.
c. 1552-1553
Source: Discourse on Voluntary Servitude/1922 Edition
In the handling of affairs, there are no teachings so good or certain as those given by experience. [...] The experience one gains on oneself teaches more and imprints better.
c. 1552-1553
Source: Discourse on Voluntary Servitude/1922 Edition
Mercy, rarely used and with judgment, is a beautiful and singular virtue in a prince; but ordinary clemency without distinction [...] is the complete subversion of all order.
c. 1552-1553
Source: Discourse on Voluntary Servitude/1922 Edition
All laws are dead and allow themselves to be corrupted [...]. Everything thus comes down to making good living laws, that is, to making a good selection of capable individuals, endowed with good understanding and probity.
c. 1552-1553
Source: Discourse on Voluntary Servitude/1922 Edition
The diseases of the mind are not cured otherwise [than with time].
c. 1552-1553
Source: Discourse on Voluntary Servitude/1922 Edition
When our [thing] is thus regulated and reformed, it will seem entirely new [...]. The abuses drove them away, and the reformation would call them back.
c. 1552-1553
Source: Discourse on Voluntary Servitude/1922 Edition
Let us only win peace and not worry that it be poor: if we have war, nothing is enough; if we have peace, nothing will be lacking.
c. 1552-1553
Source: Discourse on Voluntary Servitude/1922 Edition
It is an extreme misfortune to be subject to a master of whom one can never be sure that he will be good, since it is always in his power to be evil when he pleases.
c. 1552-1553
Source: Discourse on Voluntary Servitude/1922 Edition
So many men, so many boroughs, so many cities, so many nations sometimes endure a single tyrant, who has no power other than that which they give him.
c. 1552-1553
Source: Discourse on Voluntary Servitude/1922 Edition
To see a million men serve miserably, with their necks under the yoke, not constrained by a greater force, but [...] enchanted and charmed by the name of one man alone.
c. 1552-1553
Source: Discourse on Voluntary Servitude/1922 Edition
What a monstrous vice is this which does not even deserve to be called cowardice, which finds no name vile enough, which nature disavows having made and the tongue refuses to name?
c. 1552-1553
Source: Discourse on Voluntary Servitude/1922 Edition
It is therefore the people themselves who allow themselves to be, or rather cause themselves to be, dominated, since by ceasing to serve they would be free; it is the people who enslave themselves, who cut their own throats.
c. 1552-1553
Source: Discourse on Voluntary Servitude/1922 Edition
If to have liberty it is necessary only to desire it, if only a simple act of will is needed, will there be any nation in the world that still deems it too expensive [...]?
c. 1552-1553
Source: Discourse on Voluntary Servitude/1922 Edition
Liberty alone, men do not desire it, for no other reason, it seems, than that if they desired it, they would have it.
c. 1552-1553
Source: Discourse on Voluntary Servitude/1922 Edition
Be resolved to serve no more, and you are at once free. [...] Do not support him any longer, and you will see him, like a great colossus whose pedestal has been pulled away, fall of his own weight and break in pieces.
c. 1552-1553
Source: Discourse on Voluntary Servitude/1922 Edition
How has this stubborn will to serve become so deeply rooted that it now seems that the very love of liberty is not so natural.
c. 1552-1553
Source: Discourse on Voluntary Servitude/1922 Edition
There can be no doubt that we are naturally free, since we are all companions, and it cannot enter anyone's mind that nature has placed anyone in servitude [...].
c. 1552-1553
Source: Discourse on Voluntary Servitude/1922 Edition
The first reason for voluntary servitude is custom.
c. 1552-1553
Source: Discourse on Voluntary Servitude/1922 Edition
There are always some, better born than others, who feel the weight of the yoke and cannot restrain themselves from shaking it off; who never become accustomed to subjection.
c. 1552-1553
Source: Discourse on Voluntary Servitude/1922 Edition
Books and learning give to men, more than anything else, the sense and understanding to know themselves and to hate tyranny.
c. 1552-1553
Source: Discourse on Voluntary Servitude/1922 Edition
It is always four or five who maintain the tyrant, four or five who keep the whole country in servitude.
c. 1552-1553
Source: Discourse on Voluntary Servitude/1922 Edition
Friendship is a sacred name, it is a holy thing; [...] There can be no friendship where there is cruelty, where there is disloyalty, where there is injustice.
c. 1552-1553
Source: Discourse on Voluntary Servitude/1922 Edition
April, the sweet hope of fruits [...] which nourish their young infancy.
1546/1563
Source: The French Poets
April, the honor of the green, yellow, and blue-green meadows [...].
1546/1563
Source: The French Poets
[The meadows], in a variegated mood, embellish with a thousand flowers of color their dappled adornment.
1546/1563
Source: The French Poets
A harvest of scents and flowers, perfuming the air and the earth.
1546/1563
Source: The French Poets
It is [April's] gentle hand that, from nature's bosom, releases a harvest of scents and flowers [...].
1546/1563
Source: The French Poets
April, the grace, and the smile [...], the scent and the sweet breath.
1546/1563
Source: The French Poets
April, the perfume of the gods, who, from the heavens, smell the scent of the plain.
1546/1563
Source: The French Poets
These swallows that go [...] are the messengers of spring.
1546/1563
Source: The French Poets
In this beautiful season, in abundance, [the flowers] show their bloomed dresses.
1546/1563
Source: The French Poets
The gentle nightingale [...] carves out a thousand chattering warbles from under the shade [...].
1546/1563
Source: The French Poets
It is upon [its] happy return that love breathes [...] a dormant and covered fire that winter concealed within our veins.
1546/1563
Source: The French Poets
Love breathes [...] a dormant and covered fire that winter had concealed within our veins.
1546/1563
Source: The French Poets
In this new season, the beautiful swarm of these plundering bees flutters from flower to flower.
1546/1563
Source: The French Poets
May will boast of its coolness, its ripe fruits, and its fertile dew.
1546/1563
Source: The French Poets
The copyist, unintelligent or inattentive, has lost [...] the author's meaning.
c. 1552-1553
Source: Discourse on Voluntary Servitude/1922 Edition
We have tried to rebuild it, without claiming to explain it absolutely.
c. 1552-1553
Source: Discourse on Voluntary Servitude/1922 Edition
[...] praise the goodness of kings [...] and the submission of their subjects.
c. 1552-1553
Source: Discourse on Voluntary Servitude/1922 Edition
An energetic depiction must be compared with the language that a dying [person] spoke.
c. 1552-1553
Source: Discourse on Voluntary Servitude/1922 Edition
His liberalism had not been understood, and he saw [...] that the religious question served as a pretext for the exercise of many selfish passions.
c. 1552-1553
Source: Discourse on Voluntary Servitude/1922 Edition
[...] the religious question served as a pretext for the exercise of many selfish passions.
c. 1552-1553
Source: Discourse on Voluntary Servitude/1922 Edition
The word 'to succeed' was obviously missing.
c. 1552-1553
Source: Discourse on Voluntary Servitude/1922 Edition
Montaigne is slightly mistaken...
c. 1552-1553
Source: Discourse on Voluntary Servitude/1922 Edition
Montaigne's younger brother [...] later married La Boétie's stepdaughter.
c. 1552-1553
Source: Discourse on Voluntary Servitude/1922 Edition
This is the beginning of the first Olympian ode by Pindar.
c. 1552-1553
Source: Discourse on Voluntary Servitude/1922 Edition
Ronsard and Baïf praised him.
c. 1552-1553
Source: Discourse on Voluntary Servitude/1922 Edition
I am so bad a flatterer, that I am never more at ease than when I can freely give my opinion on the things that pass before our eyes.
1574
Source: The Alarm Clock of the French
It is often forbidden for good people [to speak], for fear that a free judgment might offend the ears of the great.
1574
Source: The Alarm Clock of the French
[Speech is forbidden] for fear that their favorites who abuse their power might thereby be known and punished.
1574
Source: The Alarm Clock of the French
If I can [...] by resorting to paper, make some honest man speak what I feel, my spirits, fed by this freedom, immediately regain new strength.
1574
Source: The Alarm Clock of the French
My spirits, fed by this freedom [to write], regain new strength.
1574
Source: The Alarm Clock of the French
The subject is well worth the trouble of reading it.
1574
Source: The Alarm Clock of the French
There is nothing superfluous (except for the overly delicate).
1574
Source: The Alarm Clock of the French
There is nothing false, nothing unworthy of being said and recommended in writing for times to come.
1574
Source: The Alarm Clock of the French
There is nothing [...] that does not serve the public good of the present time.
1574
Source: The Alarm Clock of the French
A free judgment offends the ears of the great.
1574
Source: The Alarm Clock of the French