Anlaşalım, La Fontaine Beyefendi. Ben sizi seçerek okuyacağıma, sizi seveceğime, masallarınızdan ders alacağıma söz veriyorum; çünkü bunların amaçlar… - Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Destitute of valid reasons to justify and sufficient strength to defend himself, able to crush individuals with ease, but easily crushed himself by a troop of bandits, one against all, and incapable, on account of mutual jealousy, of joining with his equals against numerous enemies united by the common hope of plunder, the rich man, thus urged by necessity, conceived at length the profoundest plan that ever entered the mind of man: this was to employ in his favour the forces of those who attacked him, to make allies of his adversaries, to inspire them with different maxims, and to give them other institutions as favourable to himself as the law of nature was unfavourable.

Unbalanced characters are always changing their affections, their tastes, their sentiments; the only constant factor is the habit of change; but the man of settled character always returns to his former habits and preserves to old age the tastes and the pleasures of his childhood.

De manera que, poniéndome en el lugar del oráculo y preguntándome qué es lo que preferiría ser, lo que soy yo o lo que son ellos, saber lo que ellos han aprendido o saber que no sé nada, me he respondido a mí mismo y al Dios: Quiero seguir siendo lo que soy.