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… is from page 70 of Harry Kurz’s 1975 English translation of Etienne de la Boetie’s 1552-53 The Politics of Obedience: The Discourse of Voluntary Servitude [2]:
Tyrants would distribute largess, a bushel of wheat, a gallon of wine, and a sesterce: and then everybody would shamelessly cry, “Long live the King!” The fools did not realize that they were merely recovering a portion of their own property, and that their ruler could not have given them what they were receiving without having first taken it from them.