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The French, for example, are a contemptible nation.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau -
L'offenseur ne pardonne jamais.1
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
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I prefer liberty with danger than peace with slavery.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau -
Inopportune consolations increase a deep sorrow.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau -
But I am mistaken in speaking of a Christian republic; the terms are mutually exclusive. Christianity preaches only servitude and dependence. Its spirit is so favorable to tyranny that it always profits by such a regime. True Christians are made to be slaves, and they know it and do not much mind; this short life counts for too little in their eyes.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau -
A citizen should render to the state all the services he can as soon as the sovereign demands them.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau -
He who eats in idleness that which he himself has not earned, steals it; and a capitalist whom the state pays for doing nothing differs little in my eyes from a brigand, who lives at the expense of passers-by.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau -
Interest is the spur of the people, but glory that of great souls.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
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All through life a man has need of a counsellor and guide.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau -
The opportunity of making happy is more scarce than we imagine; the punishment of missing it is, never to meet with it again; and the use we make of it leaves us an eternal sentiment of satisfaction or repentance.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau -
Every man has the right to risk his own life in order to preserve it. Has it ever been said that a man who throws himself out the window to escape from a fire is guilty of suicide?
Jean-Jacques Rousseau -
A man speaks of what he knows, a woman of what pleases her: the one requires knowledge, the other taste.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau -
We are born, so to speak, twice over; born into existence, and born into life; born a human being, and born a man.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau -
In the strict sense of the term, a true democracy has never existed, and never will exist.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
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Peter had a genius for imitation; but he lacked true genius, which is creative and makes all from nothing.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau -
The money that we possess is the instrument of liberty, that which we lack and strive to obtain is the instrument of slavery.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau -
Every man has a right to risk his own life for the preservation of it.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau -
Ruthless man: you begin by slaying the animal and then you devour it, as if to slay it twice. It is not enough. You turn against the dead flesh, it revolts you, it must be transformed by fire, boiled and roasted, seasoned and disguised with drugs; you must have butchers, cooks, turnspits, men who will rid the murder of its horrors, who will dress the dead bodies so that the taste decieved by these disguises will not reject what is strange to it, and will feast on corpses, the very sight of which would sicken you.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau -
He thinks like a philosopher, but governs like a king.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau -
To make a man richer, give him more money of curb his desires.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
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Frequent punishments are always a sign of weakness or laziness on the part of a government.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau -
Do I dare set forth here the most important, the most useful rule of all education? It is not to save time, but to squander it.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau -
We are born weak, we need strength; helpless, we need aid; foolish, we need reason. All that we lack at birth, all that we need when we come to man's estate, is the gift of education.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau -
The visible order of the universe proclaims a supreme intelligence.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau