Jean de La Bruyère, The «Characters» of Jean de la Bruyère, tr. Henri Van Laun (London, 1885), ch. XII., Of Opinions, §104, p. 364:
“How do you amuse yourself? How do you pass your time?” fools and clever people ask you. If I answer, in opening my eyes, in seeing, hearing, and understanding, in enjoying health, rest, and freedom, that is nothing; the solid, the great, and the only advantages of life are of no account. “I gamble, I intrigue,” are the answers they expect.
Is it good for a man to have too great and extensive a freedom, which only induces him to wish for something else, which would be to have less liberty?
Liberty is not indolence; it is a free use of time; it is to choose our labour and our relaxation; in one word, to be free is not to do nothing, but to be the sole judge of what we wish to do and to leave undone; in this sense liberty is a great boon.
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