Jean-Jacques Rousseau Quotes
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We pity in others only the those evils which we ourselves have experienced.
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Love childhood, indulge its sports, its pleasures, its delightful instincts. Who has not sometimes regretted that age when laughter was ever on the lips, and when the heart was ever at peace?
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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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At sixteen, the adolescent knows about suffering because he himself has suffered, but he barely knows that other beings also suffer.
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The members of a body-politic call it "the state" when it is passive, "the sovereign" when it is active, and a "power" when they compare it with others of its kind. Collectively they use the title "people," and they refer to one another individually as "citizens" when speaking of their participation in the authority of the sovereign, and as "subjects" when speaking of their subordination to the laws of the state.
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Base souls have no faith in great individuals.
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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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I bold it impossible, that the great monarchies of Europe can subsist much longer; they all affect magnificence and splendor.
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Too much apparatus, designed to guide us in experiments and to supplement the exactness of our senses, makes us neglect to use those senses...The more ingenious our apparatus, the coarser and more unskillful are our senses. We surround ourselves with tools and fail to use those which nature has provided every one of us.
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At first we will only skim the surface of the earth like young starlings, but soon, emboldened by practice and experience, we will spring into the air with the impetuousness of the eagle, diverting ourselves by watching the childish behavior of the little men or awling miserably around on the earth below us.
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The majesty of the Scriptures strikes me with admiration, as the purity of the gospel has its influence on my heart.
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No one is happy unless he respects himself.
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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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It is believed that physiognomy is only a simple development of the features already marked out by nature. It is my opinion, however, that in addition to this development, the features come insensibly to be formed and assume their shape from the frequent and habitual expression of certain affections of the soul. These affections are marked on the countenance; nothing is more certain than this; and when they turn into habits, they must leave on it durable impressions.
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Christ preaches only servitude and dependence... True Christians are made to be slaves.
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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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What wisdom can you find that is greater than kindness?
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A man says what he knows, a woman says what will please.
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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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I may not amount to much, but at least I am unique.
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The strongest is never strong enough to be always the master, unless he transforms strength into right, and obedience into duty.
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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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Our greatest evil flows from ourselves.
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Happiness: a good bank account, a good cook, and a good digestion.