Benjamin Constant

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

"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."