Jean-Jacques Rousseau Quotes
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Even knaves may be made good for something.
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I don't know what is truth,but I can tell you how to find it!
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Government originated in the attempt to find a form of association that defends and protects the person and property of each with the common force of all.
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Remorse sleeps during prosperity but awakes bitter consciousness during adversity.
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As long as there are rich people in the world, they will be desirous of distinguishing themselves from the poor.
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Teach by doing whenever you can, and only fall back upon words when doing it is out of the question.
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From the first moment of life, men ought to begin learning to deserve to live; and, as at the instant of birth we partake of the rights of citizenship, that instant ought to be the beginning of the exercise of our duty.
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Luxury either comes of riches or makes them necessary; it corrupts at once rich and poor, the rich by possession and the poor by covetousness.
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Sacrifice life to truth.
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Men will argue more philosophically about the human heart; but women will read the heart of man better than they.
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No one is happy unless he respects himself.
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Being wealthy isn't just a question of having lots of money. It's a question of what we want. Wealth isn't an absolute, it's relative to desire. Every time we seek something that we can't afford, we can be counted as poor, how much money we may actually have.
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To abstain that we may enjoy is the epicurianism of reason.
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To discover the rules of society that are best suited to nations, there would need to exist a superior intelligence, who could understand the passions of men without feeling any of them, who had no affinity with our nature but knew it to the full, whose happiness was independent of ours, but who would nevertheless make our happiness his concern, who would be content to wait in the fullness of time for a distant glory, and to labour in one age to enjoy the fruits in another. Gods would be needed to give men laws.
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Religious persecutors are not believers, they are rascals.
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Virtue is a state of war, and to live in it we have always to combat with ourselves.
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The English people think they are free; they are greatly deceived; they are free only during the election of members of Parliament.
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He who has the base necessities of life should pay nothing; taxation on him who has a surplus may, if need be; extend to everything beyond necessities.
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Presence of mind, penetration, fine observation, are the sciences of women; ability to avail themselves of these is their talent.
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I only see clearly what I remember.
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The infant, on opening his eyes, ought to see his country, and to the hour of his death never lose sight of it.
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There is one further distinguishing characteristic of man which is very specific indeed and about which there can be no dispute, and that is the faculty of self-improvement - a faculty which, with the help of circumstance, progressively develops all our other faculties.
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Do to others as you would have others do to you, inspires all men with that other maxim of natural goodness a great deal less perfect, but perhaps more useful: Do good to yourself with as little prejudice as you can to others.
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Laws are always useful to those who possess and vexatious to those who have nothing.