Notable Quote

"Be resolved 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 in pieces."

de La Boétie, Étienne event 1576

From Discourse on Voluntary Servitude

Context: The central thesis of the Discourse — the most quoted passage. From Discourse on Voluntary Servitude (~1549, first published 1576). English translation by Harry Kurz (1942).