Jean-Jacques Rousseau Quotes
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A feeble body weakens the mind.
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Every artists wants to be applauded
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We cannot teach children the danger of telling lies to men without realising, on the man's part, the danger of telling lies to children. A single untruth on the part of the master will destroy the results of his education.
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It is always a poor way of reading the hearts of others to try to conceal our own. [Fr., C'est toujours un mauvais moyen de lire dans le coeur des autres que d'affecter de cacher le sien.]
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The empire of woman is an empire of softness, of address, of complacency. Her commands are caresses, her menaces are tears.
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The strength of the people is effective only if it is concentrated; it evaporates and is lost when it is dispersed, just as gunpowder scattered on the ground ignites only grain by grain.
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Everything is in constant flux on this earth. Nothing keeps the same unchanging shape, and our affections, being attached to things outside us, necessarily change and pass away as they do. Always out ahead of us or lagging behind, they recall a past which is gone or anticipate a future which may never come into being; there is nothing solid there for the heart to attach itself to. Thus our earthly joys are almost without exception the creatures of a moment.
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Definitions would be good things if we did not use words to make them.
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Childhood has it's own way of seeing, thinking, and feeling, and nothing is more foolish than to try to substitute ours for theirs.
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Why should we build our happiness on the opinons of others, when we can find it in our own hearts?
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If I am part of a group of 100 people, do 99 people have the right to sentence me to death, just because they are majority?
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Man was born free, and he is everywhere in chains. Those who think themselves the masters of others are indeed greater slaves than they.
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The writings of women are always cold and pretty like themselves. There is as much wit as you may desire, but never any soul.
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I may not be better than other people, but at least I'm different.
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The English are predisposed to pride, the French to vanity.
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Truth is an homage that the good man pays to his own dignity.
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All kinds of frankness and honesty are terrible crimes in the eyes of society.
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The tone of good conversation is brilliant and natural; it is neither tedious nor frivolous; it is instructive without pedantry, gay without tumultuousness, polished without affectation, gallant without insipidity, waggish without equivocation.
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A blue-stocking is the scourge of her husband, children, friends, servants, and every one. [Fr., Une femme bel-esprit est le fleau de son mari, de ses enfants, de ses amis, de ses valets, et tout le monde.]
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I have resolved on an enterprise that has no precedent and will have no imitator. I want to set before my fellow human beings a man in every way true to nature; and that man will be myself.
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Equality, because without it there can be no liberty.
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Anticipation and Hope are born twins.
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In Genoa, the word, libertas can be read on the front of prisons and on the fetters of galley-slaves. The application of this motto is fine and just.
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God made me and broke the mold.