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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A person who can break wind is not dead.
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Many men, seemingly impelled by fortune, hasten forward to meet misfortune half way.
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L'accent est l'âme du discours.
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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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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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That which renders life burdensome to us generally arises from the abuse of it.
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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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Liberty is obedience to the law which one has laid down for oneself
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The want of occupation is no less the plague of society than of solitude.
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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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I long remained a child, and I am still one in many respects.
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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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I say to myself: "Who are you to measure infinite power?
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People who know little are usually great talkers, while men who know much say little.
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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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Frequent punishments are always a sign of weakness or laziness on the part of a government.
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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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We should not teach children the sciences; but give them a taste for them.
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Hatred, as well as love, renders its votaries credulous.
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The first person who, having enclosed a plot of land, took it into his head to say this is mine and found people simple enough to believe him was the true founder of civil society. What crimes, wars, murders, what miseries and horrors would the human race have been spared, had some one pulled up the stakes or filled in the ditch and cried out to his fellow men: "Do not listen to this imposter. You are lost if you forget that the fruits of the earth belong to all and the earth to no one!
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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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He who pretends to look on death without fear lies. All men are afraid of dying, this is the great law of sentient beings, without which the entire human species would soon be destroyed.