Jean-Jacques Rousseau Quotes
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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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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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I don't know what is truth,but I can tell you how to find it!
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Leave those vain moralists, my friend, and return to the depth of your soul: that is where you will always rediscover the source of the sacred fire which so often inflamed us with love of the sublime virtues; that is where you will see the eternal image of true beauty, the contemplation of which inspires us with a holy enthusiasm.
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Sacrifice life to truth.
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Religious persecutors are not believers, they are rascals.
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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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Remorse sleeps during prosperity but awakes bitter consciousness during adversity.
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Do you not know...that a child badly taught is farther from being wise than one not taught at all?
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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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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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I only see clearly what I remember.
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It has always pleased me to read while eating if I have no companion; it gives me the society I lack. I devour alternately a page and a mouthful; it is as though my book were dining with me.
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Even knaves may be made good for something.
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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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Good laws lead to the making of better ones; bad ones bring about worse.
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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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Men and women are made for each other, but their mutual dependence differs in degrees; man is dependent on woman through his desires; woman is dependent on man through her desires and also through her needs; he could do without her better than she can do without him. She cannot fulfill her purpose in life without his aid, without his goodwill, without his respect.....Nature herself has decreed that woman, both for herself and her children, should be at the mercy of man s judgment.
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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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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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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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There is no subjection so perfect as that which keeps the appearance of freedom.
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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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All of my misfortunes come from having thought too well of my fellows.