Jean-Jacques Rousseau Quotes
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The visible order of the universe proclaims a supreme intelligence.
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Education is either from nature, from man or from things. The developing of our faculties and organs is the education of nature; that of man is the application we learn to make of this very developing; and that of things is the experience we acquire in regard to the different objects by which we are affected. All that we have not at our birth, and that we stand in need of at the years of maturity, is the gift of education.
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That which renders life burdensome to us generally arises from the abuse of it.
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Women speak at an earlier age, more easily, and more agreeably than men; they are accused also of speaking more; this is as it should be, and I willingly change the reproach into a eulogy.
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Liberty is obedience to the law which one has laid down for oneself
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L'accent est l'âme du discours.
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A person who can break wind is not dead.
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It is to law alone that men owe justice and liberty. It is this salutary organ, of the will of all which establishes in civil rights the natural equality between men. It is this celestial voice which dictates to each citizen the precepts of public reason, and teaches him to act according to the rules of his own judgment and not to behave inconsistently with himself. It is with this voice alone that political leaders should speak when. they command.
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In the strict sense of the term, a true democracy has never existed, and never will exist.
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I long remained a child, and I am still one in many respects.
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In all the ills that befall us, we are more concerned by the intention than the result. A tile that falls off a roof may injure us more seriously, but it will not wound us so deeply as a stone thrown deliberately by a malevolent hand. The blow may miss, but the intention always strikes home.
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People who know little are usually great talkers, while men who know much say little.
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The want of occupation is no less the plague of society than of solitude.
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Many men, seemingly impelled by fortune, hasten forward to meet misfortune half way.
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I say to myself: "Who are you to measure infinite power?
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Beware of listening to this impostor; you are undone if you once forget that the fruits of the earth belong to us all, and the earth itself to nobody.
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We should not teach children the sciences; but give them a taste for them.
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Frequent punishments are always a sign of weakness or laziness on the part of a government.
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A man speaks of what he knows, a woman of what pleases her: the one requires knowledge, the other taste.
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Ordinary readers, forgive my paradoxes: one must make them when one reflects; and whatever you may say, I prefer being a man with paradoxes than a man with prejudices.
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Her dignity consists in being unknown to the world; her glory is in the esteem of her husband; her pleasures in the happiness of her family.
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Hatred, as well as love, renders its votaries credulous.
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There are times when I am so unlike myself that I might be taken for someone else of an entirely opposite character.
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We are born, so to speak, twice over; born into existence, and born into life; born a human being, and born a man.