The origin of our passions, the root and spring of all the rest, the only one which is born with man, which never leaves him as long as he lives, is … - Jean-Jacques Rousseau

It is not so much the understanding that constitutes the specific difference between the man and the brute, as the human quality of freedom...and it is particularly in his consciousness of this liberty that the spirituality of his soul is displayed. For physics may explain in some degree the mechanism of the senses and the formation of ideas; but in the power of willing or rather of choosing, and in the feeling of this power, nothing is to be found but acts which are purely spiritual and wholly inexplicable by the laws of mechanism

Unii mă vor găsi caraghios, semeţ: puţin îmi pasă! Trebuie să ştiu a înfrunta râsul şi ocara, cu condiţia să nu le merit.

"Plato, in his Republic, which is considered so stern, teaches the children only through festivals, games, songs, and amusements. It seems as if he had accomplished his purpose when he had taught them to be happy; and Seneca, speaking of the Roman lads in olden days, says, "They were always on their feet, they were never taught anything which kept them sitting." Were they any the worse for it in manhood? Do not be afraid, therefore, of this so-called idleness. What would you think of a man who refused to sleep lest he should waste part of his life? You would say, "He is mad; he is not enjoying his life, he is robbing himself of part of it; to avoid sleep he is hastening his death." Remember that these two cases are alike, and that childhood is the sleep of reason."