The leopard dies with its spots, and I have never intended to improve myself or believed myself capable of doing so. I have never really aspired to any sort of virtue, except perhaps to that of having thought that only a few crimes of a new type, which could certainly not have been cited in the past, might not be unworthy of me; and to that of not having changed after a bad start. At a critical moment in the troubles of the Fronde, Gondi, who had given such sterling proofs of his capacities in the handling of human affairs, notably in his favorite role of disturber of the public peace, improvised before the Parlement de Paris a fine quotation attributed to a classical author, for whose name everyone vainly searched, but which best could be applied to his own panegyric: "In difficillimis Republicae temporibus, urbem non deserui; in prosperus nihil de publico delibavi; nihil timui." He himself translated it like this: "In bad times I did not forsake the city; in prosperous times I had no private interests; in desperate times I feared nothing."
- Guy Debord