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Women, in general, are not attracted to art at all, nor knowledge, and not at all to genius.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau -
Man is born free and everywhere he is in chains.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
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If all were perfect Christians, individuals would do their duty; the people would be obedient to the laws, the magistrates incorrupt, and there would be neither vanity nor luxury in such a state.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau -
Singing and dancing alone will not advance one in the world. [Fr., Qui bien chante et bien danse fait un metier qui peu avance.]
Jean-Jacques Rousseau -
Laws are always useful to those who possess and vexatious to those who have nothing.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau -
Posterity is always just.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau -
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.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau -
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.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
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The one thing we do not know is the limit of the knowable.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau -
General abstract truth is the most precious of all blessings; without it, man is blind; it is the eye of reason.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau -
Physical evils destroy themselves, or they destroy us.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau -
Presence of mind, penetration, fine observation, are the sciences of women; ability to avail themselves of these is their talent.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau -
When my reason is afloat, my faith cannot long remain in suspense, and I believe in God as firmly as in any other truth whatever; in short, a thousand motives draw me to the consolatory side, and add the weight of hope to the equilibrium of reason.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau -
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?
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
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He who blushes is already guilty.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau -
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.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau -
Remorse sleeps during prosperity but awakes bitter consciousness during adversity.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau -
What, then, is the government? An intermediary body established between the subjects and the sovereign for their mutual communication, and charged with the execution of the laws and the maintenance of freedom, civil as well as political.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau -
Jewish authors would never have invented either that style nor that morality; and the Gospel has marks of truth so great, so striking, so utterly inimitable, that the invention of it would be more astonishing than the hero.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau -
We do not know either unalloyed happiness or unmitigated misfortune. Everything in this world is a tangled yarn; we taste nothing in its purity; we do not remain two moments in the same state. Our affections as well as bodies, are in a perpetual flux.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
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I hate books; they only teach people to talk about what they don't understand.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau -
All of my misfortunes come from having thought too well of my fellows.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau -
One must choose between making a man or a citizen, for one cannot make both at the same time.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau -
The first step towards vice is to shroud innocent actions in mystery, and whoever likes to conceal something sooner or later has reason to conceal it.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau