Discourse On Voluntary Servitude Quotes

كلمة الحق هي أني أرى بعضًا من الاختلاف بين الطغاة، ولكني لا أرى اختيارًا بينهم؛ لأن الطرق التي يستولون بها على زمام الحكم لا تكاد تختلف: فمن انتخبهم الشعب يعاملونه كأنه ثور يجب تذليله، والغزاة كأنه فريستهم، والوارثون كأنه قطيع من العبيد امتلكوه امتلاكًا طبيعيًا.

يصعب على المرء أن يصدق كيف أن الشعب متى تم إخضاعه يسارع إلى السقوط فجأة في هوة النسيان العميقة لحريته حتى ليمتنع أن يستيقظ لاستعادتها ويقبل على الخدمة بحرية وتلقائية حتى ليظن من يراه أنه لم يخسر حريته بل ربح عبوديته

There can be no friendship where there is cruelty, where there is disloyalty, where there is injustice. And in places where the wicked gather there is conspiracy only, not companionship: these have no affection for one another; fear alone holds them together; they are not friends, they are merely accomplices.

Similarly, the more tyrants pillage, the more they crave, the more they ruin and destroy; the more one yields to them, and obeys them, by that much do they become mightier and more formidable, the readier to annihilate and destroy. But if not one thing is yielded to them, if, without any violence they are simply not obeyed, they become naked and undone and as nothing, just as, when the root receives no nourishment, the branch withers and dies.

Certainly man is a remarkably vain, variable, and elusive subject.10 It is hard to base any constant, uniform judgment upon him.

To understand the essence and workings of insanity, Gallus Vibius strained his mind so that he tore his judgment from its seat and could never get it back again: he could boast he became mad through wisdom.1

Let us therefore learn while there is yet time, let us learn to do good. Let us raise our eyes to Heaven for the sake of our honor, for the very love of virtue, or, to speak wisely, for the love and praise of God Almighty, who is the infallible witness of our deeds and the just judge of our faults. As for me, I truly believe I am right, since there is nothing so contrary to a generous and loving God as tyranny---I believe He has reserved, in a separate spot in Hell, some very special punishment for tyrants and their accomplices

Poor, wretched, and stupid peoples, nations determined on your own misfortune and blind to your own good! You let yourselves be deprived before your own eyes of the best part of your revenues; your fields are plundered, your homes robbed, your family heirlooms taken away. You live in such a way that you cannot claim a single thing as our own; and it would seem that you consider yourselves lucky to be loaned your property, your families, and your very lives. All this havoc, this misfortune, this ruin, descends upon you not from alien foes, but from the one enemy whom you yourselves render as powerful as he is, for whom you go bravely to war, for whose greatness you do not refuse to offer your own bodies unto death. ... 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? The feet that trample down your cities, where does he get them if they are not your own? How does he have any power over you except through you? How would he dare assail you if he had no cooperation from you? What could he do to you if you yourselves did not connive with the thief who plunders you, if you were not accomplices of the murderer who kills you, if you were not traitors to yourselves? You sow crops in order that he may ravage them, you install and furnish your homes to give him goods to pillage; you rear your daughters that he may gratify his lust; you bring up your children in order that he may confer upon them the greatest privilege he knows—to be led into his battles, to be delivered to butchery, to be made servants of his greed and the instruments of his vengeance; you yield your bodies unto hard labour in order that he may indulge in his delights and wallow in his filthy pleasures; you weaken yourselves in order to make him stronger and the mightier to hold you in check. From all these indignities, such as the very beasts of the field would not endure, you can deliver yourselves if you try, not be taking action, but merely by willing to be free. Resolve to serve no more, and you are at once freed. I do not ask that you place hands upon the tyrant to topple him over, but simply that you support him no longer; then you will behold him, like a great Colossus whose pedestal has been pulled away, fall of his own weight and break into pieces.

I do not know how it happens that nature fails to place within the hearts of men a burning desire for liberty, a blessing so great and so desirable that when it is lost all evils follow thereafter, and even the blessings that remain lose taste and savor because of their corruption by servitude. Liberty is the only joy upon which men do not seem to insist; for surely if they really wanted it they would receive it. Apparently they refuse this wonderful privilege because it is so easily acquired.

Anyone who teaches men how to die would teach them how to live.36

I keep telling myself: anything that can be done some other day can be done today.xiii

Let us never allow ourselves to be carried away so completely by pleasure that we fail to recall from time to time in how many ways our happiness is prey to death and threatened by its grip.

The fools did not realize that they were merely recovering a portion of their own property, and that their ruler could not have given them what they were receiving without having first taken it from them.

Every one of us is a hodge-podge, so shapeless and diverse in structure that each piece, each moment, plays its own game. And there is as much difference between us and ourselves as there is between us and others. I

Do not imagine that there is any bird more easily caught by decoy, nor any fish sooner fixed on the hook by wormy bait, than are all of these poor fools neatly tricked into servitude by the slightest feather passed before their mouths.

It is not certain where Death awaits us, so let us await it everywhere. To think of death beforehand is to think of our liberty. Whoever learns how to die has learned how not to be a slave. Knowing how to die frees us from all subjection and constraint.xi

let us learn to withstand it resolutely, and to fight it. And to start to rid it of its greatest advantage over us, let us take a completely different route from the usual one. Let us rid it of its strangeness, get to know it, become accustomed to it. Let us have nothing so often in our minds as death. Let us picture it in our imagination constantly, in all its aspects.

If you did not have death, you would curse me incessantly for depriving you of it. Realizing its advantages, I have deliberately mixed a little bitterness into it to prevent you from embracing it too greedily and imprudently. To place you in the state of moderation I ask of you, of neither running from life nor fleeing from death, I have modulated them both between sweet and bitter.

FOR THE PRESENT I should to understand how it happens that so many men, so many villages, so many cities, so many nations, sometimes suffer under a single tyrant who has no other power than the power they give him; who is able to harm them only to the extent to which they have the willingness to bear with him; who could do them absolutely no injury unless they preferred to put up with him rather than contradict him.

One side will have before its eyes the blessings of the past and the hope of similar joy in the future; their thoughts will dwell less on the comparatively brief pain of battle than on what they may have to endure forever, they, their children, and all their posterity. The other side has nothing to inspire it with courage except the weak urge of greed, which fades before danger and which can never be so keen, it seems to me, that it will not be dismayed by the least drop of blood from wounds.

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? The feet that trample down your cities, where does he get them if they are not your own?

Soyez résolus de ne servir plus, et vous voilà libres.

(...)Ora, comumente, ficam sem efeito o bom zelo e afeição dos que apesar do tempo conservaram a devoção à franquia, por mais numerosos que sejam, porque não se conhecem; sob o tirano, é-lhes tirada toda a liberdade de fazer, de falar, e quase de pensar: todos se tornam singulares em suas fantasias. Portanto, Momo, o deus zombeteiro, não zombou demais quando censurou o homem que Vulcano fizera por não ter-lhe posto uma janelinha no coração para que por aí se pudesse ver seus pensamentos.(...)

Pois, em verdade, o que é aproximar-se do tirano senão recuar mais de sua liberdade e, por assim dizer, apertar com as duas mãos e abraçar a servidão? Que ponham um pouco de lado sua ambição e que se livrem um pouco de sua avareza, e depois, que olhem-se a si mesmos e se reconheçam; e verão claramente que os aldeões, os camponeses que espezinham o quanto podem e os tratam pior do que a forçados ou escravos — verão que esses, assim maltratados, são no entanto felizes e mais livres elo que eles. O lavrador e o artesão, ainda que subjugados, ficam quites ao fazer o que lhes dizem; mas o tirano vê os outros que lhe são próximos trapaceando e mendigando seu favor; não só é preciso que façam o que diz mas que pensem o que quer e amiúde, para satisfazê-lo, que ainda antecipem seus pensamentos. Para eles não basta obedecê-lo, também é preciso agradá-lo, é preciso que se arrebentem, que se atormentem, que se matem de trabalhar nos negócios dele; e já que se aprazem com o prazer dele, que deixam seu gosto pelo dele, que forçam sua compleição, que despem o seu natural, é preciso que estejam atentos às palavras dele, à voz dele, aos sinais dele, e aos olhos dele; que não tenham olho, pé, mão, que tudo esteja alerta para espiar as vontades dele e descobrir seus pensamentos. Isso é viver feliz? Chama-se a isso, viver? Há no mundo algo menos suportável do que isso, não digo para um homem de coração, não digo para um bem-nascido, mas apenas para um que tenha o senso comum ou nada mais que a face de homem? Que condição é mais miserável que viver assim, nada tendo de seu, recebendo de outrem sua satisfação, sua liberdade, seu corpo e sua vida?

Most animals display a natural instinct to be free. When an attempt is made to capture an animal, it flees in terror or else reacts with fierce aggression. When taken from its natural habitat and placed in captivity, its innate vigor atrophies and is replaced by lethargy and despondency. The successful domestication of a species, therefore, usually requires numerous generations of selective breeding in order to eradicate the animal’s instinct to roam and live free. La Boétie asserts that in human beings this instinct for freedom is especially pronounced. Various social factors, however, have atrophied this natural instinct over time, to the point where now “the very love of liberty no longer seems natural” (Étienne de La Boétie, The Discourse on Voluntary Servitude)

Plays, farces, spectacles, gladiators, strange beasts, medals, pictures, and other such opiates, these were for ancient peoples the bait toward slavery, the price of their liberty, the instruments of tyranny. By these practices and enticements the ancient dictators so successfully lulled their subjects under the yoke, that the stupefied peoples, fascinated by the pastimes and vain pleasures flashed before their eyes, learned subservience as naively, but not so creditably, as little children learn to read by looking at bright picture books. Roman tyrants invented a further refinement. They often provided the city wards with feasts to cajole the rabble, always more readily tempted by the pleasure of eating than by anything else. The most intelligent and understanding amongst them would not have quit his soup bowl to recover the liberty of the Republic of Plato. Tyrants would distribute largess, a bushel of wheat, a gallon of wine, and a sesterce: and then everybody would shamelessly cry, “Long live the King!” The fools did not realize that they were merely recovering a portion of their own property, and that their ruler could not have given them what they were receiving without having first taken it from them. A man might one day be presented with a sesterce and gorge himself at the public feast, lauding Tiberius and Nero for handsome liberality, who on the morrow, would be forced to abandon his property to their avarice, his children to their lust, his very blood to the cruelty of these magnificent emperors, without offering any more resistance than a stone or a tree stump. 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. Nowadays I do not meet anyone who, on hearing mention of Nero, does not shudder at the very name of that hideous monster, that disgusting and vile pestilence. Yet when he died---when this incendiary, this executioner, this savage beast, died as vilely as he had lived---the noble Roman people, mindful of his games and his festivals, were saddened to the point of wearing mourning for him.

کسِنوفون از سرنوشت شوم جباران نوشته‌است که چون به همه بد می‌کنند ناچار به همه بدگمانند

Friendship is a sacred word, a holy thing; it is never developed except between persons of character, and never takes root except through mutual respect; it flourishes not so much by kindnesses as by sincerity. What makes one friend sure of another is the knowledge of his integrity: as guarantees he has his friend's fine nature, his honor, and his constancy.