A Brief Genealogy of the Sovereign and the Celebrity

Men always owe the delights of life and power

to the chance that once created nobles:

for talent is good luck in constitution,

just as patrimonial fortune is good luck

in birth. The idle will therefore always 

govern his fellow men: after questioning,

 tired of things, he feels the urge

 to PLAY WITH MEN.

Honoré de Balzac, Treatise on Elegant Living