Full Idea
Liberty is like those solid foods or full-bodied wines appropriate for strengthening robust constitutions that are used to them, but which overpower, ruin and intoxicate the weak and delicate who are not suited to them.
Gist of Idea
Like rich food, liberty can ruin people who are too weak to cope with it
Source
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (Discourse on the Origin of Inequality [1754], Intro letter)
Book Reference
Rousseau,Jean-Jacques: 'The Basic Political Writings', ed/tr. Cress,Donald A. [Hackett 1987], p.27
A Reaction
Rousseau vision of a successful society involves robustly self-sufficient citizens (as in the American ideal), rather than people who are free, but easily led into dependence (in a 'nanny state').