Jean-Jacques Rousseau Quotes
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We do not know either unalloyed happiness or unmitigated misfortune. Everything in this world is a tangled yarn; we taste nothing in its purity; we do not remain two moments in the same state. Our affections as well as bodies, are in a perpetual flux.
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Heroes are not known by the loftiness of their carriage; the greatest braggarts are generally the merest cowards.
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The man who meditates is a depraved animal.
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Girls must be thwarted early in life.
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It is always a poor way of reading the hearts of others to try to conceal our own. [Fr., C'est toujours un mauvais moyen de lire dans le coeur des autres que d'affecter de cacher le sien.]
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The majesty of the Scriptures strikes me with admiration, as the purity of the gospel has its influence on my heart.
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Rather suffer an injustice than commit one.
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The science of government is only a science of combinations, of applications, and of exceptions, according to times, places and circumstances.
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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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Man was born free, and he is everywhere in chains. Those who think themselves the masters of others are indeed greater slaves than they.
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By doing good we become good.
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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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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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But remain the teacher of the young teachers. Advise and direct us, and we will be ready to learn. I will have need of you as long as I live.
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All kinds of frankness and honesty are terrible crimes in the eyes of society.
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Everything is in constant flux on this earth. Nothing keeps the same unchanging shape, and our affections, being attached to things outside us, necessarily change and pass away as they do. Always out ahead of us or lagging behind, they recall a past which is gone or anticipate a future which may never come into being; there is nothing solid there for the heart to attach itself to. Thus our earthly joys are almost without exception the creatures of a moment.
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I may be no better, but at least I am different.
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Childhood is the sleep of reason. [Fr., L'enfance est le sommeil de la raison.]
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God made me and broke the mold.
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The mechanism she employs is much more powerful than ours, for all her levers move the human heart.
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A child who passes through many hands in turn, can never be well brought up. At every change he makes a secret comparison, which continually tends to lessen his respect for those who control him, and with it their authority over him. If once he thinks there are grown-up people with no more sense than children the authority of age is destroyed and his education is ruined.
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Our greatest evil flows from ourselves.
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Our greatest misfortunes come to us from ourselves.
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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.