pour régner; c'est une science qu'on ne possède jamais moins qu'après l'avoir trop apprise, et qu'on acquiert mieux en obéissant qu'en commandant. - Jean-Jacques Rousseau

The sophism that ruined me is the one made by the majority of men,
who complain about lacking strength when it is already too late to make use of it.
[...]
Virtue costs us only through our own fault, and if we always wanted to be wise, we would rarely need to be virtuous. But inclinations that would be
easy to overcome sweep us away without resistance:
we give way to slight temptations whose danger we scorn

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.

L'homme vraiment libre ne veut que ce qu'il peut, et fait ce qu'il lui plaît.