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I am not the rose, but I have lived near it.

— Benjamin Constant

Je ne suis pas la rose, mais j’ai vécu avec elle.

Original text (French)

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More quotes by Benjamin Constant

The flames of Moscow were the aurora of the liberty of the world.

Esprit de Conquête. Preface (1813)

Diversity is life; uniformity is death.

The aim of the ancients was the sharing of social power among the citizens of the same fatherland: this is what they called liberty. The aim of the moderns is the enjoyment of liberty in private pleasures, and they call “liberty” the guarantees accorded by institutions to these pleasures.

The Liberty of Ancients Compared with that of Moderns (1819)

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