Liberty may be gained, but can never be recovered.
 Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract (1762). copy citation

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Author Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Source The Social Contract
Topic freedom conquest gain liberty
Date 1762
Language English
Reference Of the Social Contract, or Principles of Political Law, Book II
Note Translated by George Douglas Howard Cole
Weblink https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Social_Contract/Book_II

Context

“They cannot even happen twice to the same people, for it can make itself free as long as it remains barbarous, but not when the civic impulse has lost its vigour. Then disturbances may destroy it, but revolutions cannot mend it: it needs a master, and not a liberator. Free peoples, be mindful of this maxim: "Liberty may be gained, but can never be recovered."
Youth is not infancy. There is for nations, as for men, a period of youth, or, shall we say, maturity, before which they should not be made subject to laws; but the maturity of a people is not always easily recognisable, and, if it is anticipated, the work is spoilt.” source
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