l'impulsion du seul appétit est esclavage, et l'obéissance à la loi qu'on s'est prescrite est liberté. - Jean-Jacques Rousseau

He [Savoyard abbe M. Gaime] drew me a true picture of human life about which I had only false ideas; he showed me how, in an adverse destiny, the wise man can always attain happiness and tack close to the wind to reach it, how there is no true happiness without wisdom, and how there is wisdom in every station. He very much subdued my admiration for ]greatness by proving to me that those who dominated others were neither wiser nor happier than they. He told me something that has often returned to my memory, which is that if each man could read in the hearts of all the others, there would be more people who would want to descend than to rise. This reflection — the truth of which is striking and which is not at all exaggerated — has been of great use to me in the course of my life by making me keep peacefully in my place. He gave me the first true ideas about what is decent, which my bombastic genius had grasped only in its extremes. He made me feel that enthusiasm for sublime virtues was of little use in society; that by aiming too high one was subject to falls; that the continuity of small duties always well fulfilled did not require any less strength than heroic actions; that one could turn them to better account for honor and for happiness; and that it was worth infinitely more always to have men's esteem than sometimes to have their admiration.

The first is that the individual forming part of a crowd acquires, solely from numerical considerations, a sentiment of invincible power which allows him to yield to instincts which, had he been alone, he would perforce have kept under restraint. He will be the less disposed to check himself from the consideration that, a crowd being anonymous, and in consequence irresponsible, the sentiment of responsibility which always controls individuals disappears entirely.

Çevremizde her şey değişir. Kendimiz de değişiriz ve kimse bugün sevdiğini yarın da seveceğinden emin olamaz. Böylece şu dünyayla ilgili mutluluk tasarılarımız hep ham düşlemlerdir. Gönül rahatına kavuştuğumuz zaman, zevkine varalım; kendi kusurumuzla onu kaçırmayalım; ama onu bağlamayı düşünmek de bir çılgınlıktır. Mutlu olan az kişi gördüm, belki de görmedim; ama, gönlü hoşnut kimselere sık sık rastlarım. Mutluluğumun dış belirtileri yoktur; onu keşfetmek için mutlu insanın yüreğindekini görebilmeli.