For this first message of the year, we are sharing a quote from Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778), a Genevan writer who travelled to Valais on several occasions and who, in contact with the people of Valais, noted the following thoughts:
"I have always noticed that false people are sober, and great restraint at the table quite often betrays feigned morals and duplicitous souls. A frank man is less afraid of this affected chatter and these tender outpourings that precede drunkenness; but one must know how to stop and prevent excess. That was hardly possible for me with drinkers as determined as the people of Valais, with wines as strong as their country, and at tables where one never saw water. How could one bring oneself to play the wise man so foolishly and offend such good people? So I became intoxicated out of gratitude."
