“Whatever does not spring from a man’s free choice, or is only the result of instruction and guidance, does not enter into his very being — but remains alien to his true nature. He does not perform it with truly human energies but merely with mechanical exactness. And if a man acts in a mechanical way, reacting to external demands or instruction, rather than in ways determined by his own interests, energies and power — we may admire what he does, but we despise what he is.”
—Noam Chomsky [citing Wilhelm von Humboldt]
