Education should be constructed on two bases: morality and prudence. Morality, in order to assist virtue, and prudence in order to defend you against the vices of others. In tipping the scales toward morality, you merely produce dupes and martyrs. In tipping it the other way, you produce egotistical schemers.

Nicolas Chamfort (1741-1794) French writer, epigrammist (b. Nicolas-Sébastien Roch)

Maxims and Thoughts, ch. 5 (1796) [tr. W. Merwin (1984)]