Jean-Jacques Rousseau Quotes
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Our greatest evils flow from ourselves.
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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.
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Remorse sleeps in the atmosphere of prosperity.
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Interest is the spur of the people, but glory that of great souls.
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If I am part of a group of 100 people, do 99 people have the right to sentence me to death, just because they are majority?
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For it is in our nature to endure patiently the decrees of fate, but not the ill-will of others.
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To try to conceal our own heart is a bad means to read that of others.
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All through life a man has need of a counsellor and guide.
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No man has any natural authority over his fellow men.
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Every man has a right to risk his own life for the preservation of it.
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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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L'offenseur ne pardonne jamais.1
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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.
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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.
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Never did I think so much, exist so much, be myself so much as in the journeys I have made alone and on foot. Walking has something about it which animates and enlivens my ideas. I can hardly think while I am still; my body must be in motion to move my mind.
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Taste is, so to speak, the microscope of the judgment.
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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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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?
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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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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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Teach him to live rather than to avoid death: life is not breath, but action, the use of our senses, our mind, our faculties, every part of ourselves which makes us conscious of our being. Life consists less in length of days than in the keen sense of living. A man maybe buried at a hundred and may never have lived at all. He would have fared better had he died young.
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The man who meditates is a depraved animal.
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In the North the first words are, Help me; in the South, Love me.
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Le remords s'endort durant un destin prospère et s'aigrit dans l'adversité.