It is easier to conquer than to administer. With enough leverage, a finger could overturn the world; but to support the world, one must have the shou… - Jean-Jacques Rousseau

With a long enough lever, the world could be moved with a single finger; to sustain it needs the shoulders of Hercules

Self-love, which concerns itself only with ourselves, is content to satisfy our own needs; but selfishness, which is always comparing self with others, is never satisfied and never can be; for this feeling, which prefers ourselves to others, requires that they should prefer us to themselves, which is impossible. Thus the tender and gentle passions spring from self-love, while the hateful and angry passions spring from selfishness. So it is the fewness of his needs, the narrow limits within which he can compare himself with others, that makes a man really good; what makes him really bad is a multiplicity of needs and dependence on the opinions of others.

Renunciar a la libertad es renunciar a la condición de hombre, a los derechos de la humanidad y a sus mismos deberes. No hay indemnización posible para el que renuncia a todo. Semejante renuncia es incompatible con la naturaleza del hombre; y quitar toda clase de libertad a su voluntad, es quitar toda moralidad a sus acciones.

To be something, to be himself, and always at one with himself, a man must act as he speaks, must know what course he ought to take, and must follow that course with vigour and persistence.