Jean-Jacques Rousseau Quotes
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Temperance and labor are the two best physicians of man; labor sharpens the appetite, and temperance prevents from indulging to excess
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Let the trumpet of the day of judgment sound when it will, I shall appear with this book in my hand before the Sovereign Judge, and cry with a loud voice, This is my work, there were my thoughts, and thus was I. I have freely told both the good and the bad, have hid nothing wicked, added nothing good.
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Everything made by man may be destroyed by man; there are no ineffaceable characters except those engraved by nature; and nature makes neither princes nor rich men nor great lords.
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Finance is a slave's word.
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We pity in others only the those evils which we ourselves have experienced.
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I may not amount to much, but at least I am unique.
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A man says what he knows, a woman says what will please.
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The mechanism she employs is much more powerful than ours, for all her levers move the human heart.
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Although modesty is natural to man, it is not natural to children. Modesty only begins with the knowledge of evil.
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All kinds of frankness and honesty are terrible crimes in the eyes of society.
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The science of government is only a science of combinations, of applications, and of exceptions, according to times, places and circumstances.
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I remembered the way out suggested by a great princess when told that the peasants had no bread: 'Well, let them eat cake'.
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There is a period of life when we go back as we advance. [Fr., Il est un terme de la vie au-dela duquel en retrograde en avancant.]
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The passions are the voice of the body.
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Whoever refuses to obey the general will will be forced to do so by the entire body; this means merely that he will be forced to be free.
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Plant and your spouse plants with you; weed and you weed alone.
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People who know little are usually great talkers, while men who know much say little. It is plain that an ignorant person thinks everything he does know important, and he tells it to everybody. But a well-educated man is not so ready to display his learning; he would have too much to say, and he sees that there is much more to be said, so he holds his peace.
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Whatever may be our natural talents, the art of writing is not acquired all at once.
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What wisdom can you find that is greater than kindness?
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Conscience is the voice of the soul, the passions are the voice of the body. Is it astonishing that often these two languages contradict each other, and then to which must we listen? Too often reason deceives us; we have only too much acquired the right of refusing to listen to it; but conscience never deceives us; it is the true guide of man; it is to man what instinct is to the body; which follows it, obeys nature, and never is afraid of going astray.
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Love, known to the person by whom it is inspired, becomes more bearable.
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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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It is not our criminal actions that require courage to confess, but those which are ridiculous and foolish.
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As evening approached, I came down from the heights of the island, and I liked then to go and sit on the shingle in some secluded spot by the lake; there the noise of the waves and the movement of the water, taking hold of my senses and driving all other agitation from my soul, would plunge me into delicious reverie in which night often stole upon me unawares.