Jean-Jacques Rousseau Quotes
-
When a man dies he clutches in his hands only that which he has given away during his lifetime.
-
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.
-
The indifference of children towards meat is one proof that the taste for meat is unnatural; their preference is for vegetable foods...Beware of changing this natural taste and making children flesh-eaters, if not for their health's sake, for the sake of their character; for how can one explain away the fact that great meat-eaters are usually fiercer and more cruel than other men; this has been recognised at all times and in all places.
-
What good would it be to possess the whole universe if one were its only survivor?
-
The world is woman's book. [Fr., Le monde est le livre des femmes.]
-
Chère amie, ne savez-vous pas que la vertu est un état de guerre, et que, pour y vivre, on a toujours quelque combat à rendre contre soi?
-
Foxley translation
-
The greatest braggarts are usually the biggest cowards.
-
We are reduced to asking others what we are. We never dare to ask ourselves.
-
Absolute silence leads to sadness. It is the image of death.
-
But in some great souls, who consider themselves as citizens of the world, and forcing the imaginary barriers that separate people from people.
-
The money that we possess is the instrument of liberty, that which we lack and strive to obtain is the instrument of slavery.
-
To try to conceal our own heart is a bad means to read that of others.
-
Our greatest misfortunes come to us from ourselves.
-
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.
-
No man has any natural authority over his fellow men.
-
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?
-
An honest man nearly always thinks justly.
-
Ought to have a universal compulsory force to move and arrange each part in the manner best suited to the whole. Just as nature gives each man an absolute power over all his members, the social compact gives the body politic an absolute power over all its members." "We grant that each person alienates, by the social compact, only that portion of his power, his goods, and liberty whose use is of consequence to the community; but we must also grant that only the sovereign is the judge of what is of consequence.
-
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.
-
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.
-
It is not possible for minds degraded by a host of trivial concerns to ever rise to anything great.
-
All that time is lost which might be better employed.
-
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.