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Where has he acquired enough eyes to spy upon you, if you do not provide them yourselves? How can he have so many arms to beat you with, if he does not borrow them from you?

— Étienne de La Boétie Discourse on Voluntary Servitude (1548)

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More quotes by Étienne de La Boétie

Men accept servility in order to acquire wealth; as if they could acquire anything of their own when they cannot even assert that they belong to themselves.

Discourse on Voluntary Servitude (1548)

The good seed that nature plants in us is so slight and so slippery that it cannot withstand the least harm from wrong nourishment.

Discourse on Voluntary Servitude (1548)

Friendship ... receives its real sustenance from an equality that, to proceed without a limp, must have its two limbs equal.

Discourse on Voluntary Servitude (1548)

Friendship ... flourishes not so much by kindnesses as by sincerity.

Discourse on Voluntary Servitude (1548)

The mob has always behaved in this way—eagerly open to bribes that cannot be honorably accepted, and dissolutely callous to degradation and insult that cannot be honorably endured.

Discourse on Voluntary Servitude (1548)

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Étienne de La Boétie (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.