If you are willing to do only what’s easy, life will be hard. But if you’re willing to do what’s hard, life will be easy. - Jean-Jacques Rousseau

We no longer dare seem what we really are, but lie under a perpetual restraint; in the meantime the herd of men, which we call society, all act under the same circumstances exactly alike, unless very particular and powerful motives prevent them. Thus we never know with whom we have to deal; and even to know our friends we must wait for some critical and pressing occasion; that it, till it is too late; for it is on those very occasion that such knowledge is of use to us.

He aquí cómo el lujo, la disolución y la esclavitud han sido en todo tiempo el castigo a los esfuerzos orgullosos que hemos hecho para salir de la feliz ignorancia donde nos había situado la sabiduría eterna.

I have entered on an enterprise which is without precedent, and will have no imitator. I propose to show my fellows a man as nature made him, and this man shall be myself.