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

— 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)

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)

From all these indignities, such as the very beasts of the field would not endure, you can deliver yourselves if you try, not by taking action, but merely by willing to be free.

Discourse on Voluntary Servitude (1548)

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