Jean-Jacques Rousseau Quotes
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Each member of the community gives himself to it at the instant of its constitution, just as he actually is, himself and all his forces, including all goods in his possession.
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A person who can break wind is not dead.
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Take from the philosopher the pleasure of being heard and his desire for knowledge ceases.
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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.
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Girls must be thwarted early in life.
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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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Our greatest misfortunes come to us from ourselves.
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To write a good love letter, you ought to begin without knowing what you mean to say, and to finish without knowing what you have written.
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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.
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Every man has a right to risk his own life for the preservation of it.
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The want of occupation is no less the plague of society than of solitude.
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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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The visible order of the universe proclaims a supreme intelligence.
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Many men, seemingly impelled by fortune, hasten forward to meet misfortune half way.
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Men, in general, are not this or that, they are what they are made to be.
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He thinks like a philosopher, but governs like a king.
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To make a man richer, give him more money of curb his desires.
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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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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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I may be no better, but at least I am different.
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There is not a single ill-doer who could not be turned to some good.
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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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In truth, laws are always useful to those with possessions and harmful to those who have nothing; from which it follows that the social state is advantageous to men only when all possess something and none has too much.
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No man has any natural authority over his fellow men.