“Go, lock yourselves in your cities, submit to your petty laws; earn your bread by the sweat of your brow, or devour the bread of the poor; slaughter one another over a word, over a master; doubt the existence of God, or worship Him in superstitious forms: I will wander in my solitudes; not a single beat of my heart will be stifled, not a single one of my thoughts will be chained; I will be as free as nature; I will acknowledge no sovereign but the One who ignited the flame of the suns and with a single stroke of His hand set all the worlds in motion.”
— Chateaubriand, called “the father of Romanticism”