Jean-Jacques Rousseau Quotes
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Not all the subtilties of metaphysics can make me doubt a moment of the immortality of the soul, and of a beneficent Providence. I feel it, I believe it, I desire it, I hope it, and will defend it to my last breath.
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Self-love is an instrument useful but dangerous; it often wounds the hand which makes use of it, and seldom does good without doing harm.
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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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With children use force; with men reason; such is the natural order of things. The wise man requires no law.
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Remorse sleeps during prosperity but awakes bitter consciousness during adversity.
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The only moral lesson which is suited for a child--the most important lesson for every time of life--is this: 'Never hurt anybody.
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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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At length I recollected the thoughtless saying of a great princess, who, on being informed that the country people had no bread, replied, "Let them eat cake".
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Consolation indiscreetly pressed upon us, when we are suffering undue affliction, only serves to increase our pain, and to render our grief more poignant.
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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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Man is born free and everywhere he is in chains.
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The one thing we do not know is the limit of the knowable.
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The world is the book of women. Whatever knowledge they may possess is more commonly acquired by observation than by reading.
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Sovereigns always see with pleasure a taste for the arts of amusement and superfluity, which do not result in the exportation of bullion, increase among their subjects. They very well know that, besides nourishing that littleness of mind which is proper to slavery, the increase of artificial wants only binds so many more chains upon the people.
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There is no evildoer who could not be made good for something.
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I hate books; they only teach us to talk about things we know nothing about.
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Abstaining so as really to enjoy, is the epicurism, the very perfection, of reason.
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Living is not breathing but doing.
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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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Posterity is always just.
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Women, in general, are not attracted to art at all, nor knowledge, and not at all to genius.
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Gracefulness cannot subsist without ease; delicacy is not debility; nor must a woman be sick in order to please. Infirmity, and sickness may excite our pity, but desire and pleasure require the bloom and vigor of health.
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One must choose between making a man or a citizen, for one cannot make both at the same time.
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General abstract truth is the most precious of all blessings; without it, man is blind; it is the eye of reason.