All wickedness comes from weakness. The child is wicked only because he is weak. Make him strong; he will be good. He who could do everything would n… - Jean-Jacques Rousseau

"I found that stealing and being beaten went together, and in some way made up a single condition, and that by fulfilling the part of that condition that depended on me, I could leave the care of the other part to my master. From this idea, I set out to steal more calmly than before. I said to myself, "What will come of it in the end? I will be beaten. So be it: that's what I am made for

Russia will never be really civilized, because it was civilized too soon. Peter has a genius for imitation; but he lacked true genius, which is creative and makes all from nothing. ... His first wish was to make Germans or Englishmen, when he ought to have been making Russians; and he prevented his subjects from ever becoming what they might have been by persuading them that they were what they are not.

Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains. Here's one who thinks he is the master of others, yet he is more enslaved than they are.