Jean-Jacques Rousseau Quotes
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The world is woman's book. [Fr., Le monde est le livre des femmes.]
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L'offenseur ne pardonne jamais.1
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We are reduced to asking others what we are. We never dare to ask ourselves.
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Absolute silence leads to sadness. It is the image of death.
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Hatred, as well as love, renders its votaries credulous.
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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.
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O love, if I regret the age when one savors you, it is not for the hour of pleasure, but for the one that follows it.
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[When anything happens, we interpret it as good or bad, but...] We do not know what is really good or bad fortune. [Only the future can decide. For example, what appears to be bad today may in fact lead us to a greater good tomorrow and by the very act of thinking and planning in that positive way, we can help make that good future come true.]
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The money that we possess is the instrument of liberty, that which we lack and strive to obtain is the instrument of slavery.
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I say to myself: "Who are you to measure infinite power?
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Our greatest misfortunes come to us from ourselves.
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It is not possible for minds degraded by a host of trivial concerns to ever rise to anything great.
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To try to conceal our own heart is a bad means to read that of others.
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There are two things to be considered with regard to any scheme. In the first place, Is it good in itself? In the second, Can it be easily put into practice?
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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.
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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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It is easier to conquer than to administer. With enough leverage, a finger could overturn the world; but to support the world, one must have the shoulders of Hercules.
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An honest man nearly always thinks justly.
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It is unnatural for a majority to rule, for a majority can seldom be organized and united for specific action, and a minority can.
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The social compact sets up among the citizens as equality of such kind, that they all bind themselves to observe the same conditions and should therefore all enjoy the same rights.
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Behold the works of our philosophers; with all their pompous diction, how mean and contemptible they are by comparison with the Scriptures! Is it possible that a book at once so simple and sublime should be merely the work of man?
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All that time is lost which might be better employed.
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To make a man richer, give him more money of curb his desires.
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The man is best served who has no occasion to put the hands of others at the end of his own arms.