What does Égésippe do, who is asking for employment? Should he be put in finances or the army? This is indifferent, and only self-interest should decide; because he is as capable of managing money, or of keeping records, as of carrying arms. "He is fit for everything", his friends say, which means that he has no more talent for one thing than for another, or in other terms, that he isn't fit for anything. Thus, most men who were only occupied with themselves when they were young, corrupted by laziness or pleasure, falsely believe when they are older that it is enough for them to be useless or indigent for the republic to help and employ them; and they rarely profit from this very important lesson, that men must use the first years of their life to become, with their study and work, such that the republic needs their industry and insight, that they become a necessary part of the whole edifice, and that the state finds it in its own advantage to make their fortune or to increase it.

We must work toward making ourselves very worthy of some office: the rest does not concern us, it is the affair of others.